German collection society GEMA wins against Youtube at court

[Skybird]

The quality of songs at youtube varies widely. Sometimes the quality is very good, sometimes videos they have are HD resolution up to 1680 resolution.

Before today, Youtube acted as the innocent victim not knowing that it was hosting pirated music and videos, and it did not care.

Before today, GEMA acted as if it were the commander-in-chief of every artist out there and demanded fees that simply are most likely too expensive for Youtube to pay htem by advertisment incomes in Germany.

No side got all it wanted today.

What possibly will come after today is that the risen pressure leads to a higher chance for Youtube accepting a higher payment, and GEMA accepting a lower payment and a greater share of that payment being payed in form of a flatrate.

What is very unlikely is that Youtube will shut down in Germany.

[Catfish]

You also forget that EVERY musician is being charged, if he is a member of the GEMA, or not - they charge any musician automatically assuming he's a member of the GEMA - which why lots of musicians are against it.

[Skybird]

...???

[Catfish]

Maybe this came out wrong - imagine a musician from Indonesia, who has never heard of the GEMA, let alone being paid royalties by them.
This artist will not be shown on YouTube, in Germany, even if this artist insisted.

What's more, IF this artist is being shown at YouTube in Germany because of users paying for seeing him there, he will never get the money from the GEMA.
This company assumes that every artist worldwide is automatically a member of the GEMA, if he signed a contract or not. And if the GEMA collected fees and he does not show up to get the cash collected for him - his problem. Isn't this a nice business idea ?

[HunterICX]

I wouldn't be happy at all when these coorperations gain more ground...it'll restrict freedom and force more things down our throats that we must pay for/submit to to get what we would like.

HunterICX

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

I wouldn't be happy at all when these coorperations gain more ground...it'll restrict freedom and force more things down our throats that we must pay for/submit to to get what we would like.

HunterICX

Youtube already has flatrate agreements in over 40 coutnries, they said yesterday. so they already pay for hosting protected ocntent. But GEMA wanted mroe money form them than in the business model of Yiutube can be afforded, they say. The user does not pay money for the streams. The fianncing takes place via advertising exclusively. Only when you are logging a Google account so that you have access to com ment functions and posting options yourself, you give away the other currency by which you pay Google: your personal data and the spying on your internet behavior that allows the establishing of a consumer and character profile that then gets sold by Google, mostly to advertising companies.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Maybe this came out wrong - imagine a musician from Indonesia, who has never heard of the GEMA, let alone being paid royalties by them.
This artist will not be shown on YouTube, in Germany, even if this artist insisted.

What's more, IF this artist is being shown at YouTube in Germany because of users paying for seeing him there, he will never get the money from the GEMA.
This company assumes that every artist worldwide is automatically a member of the GEMA, if he signed a contract or not. And if the GEMA collected fees and he does not show up to get the cash collected for him - his problem. Isn't this a nice business idea ?

Collecting organisations like GEMA exist in almost all developed countries, and there are international cooperations between these national organisation.

The guy from Indonesia who is not member of GEMA (which stands only for 64.000 copyright holders who are active in music) is free to put his file up on Youtube, from indoneisa, if regulations in Indonesia allow that.

Gema wants a basic fee that is fixed form Youtube, and it wants a fee for ever song stremaed that is by an asrtist whose copyright gets reporesneted by GEMA. GEMA does not wants a fee-per-stream from content it does not represents on behalf of the copyright holder.

It ocasionally happened that they did this, though, that isd right. But it is by far not the rule, and whether it is intentional or just mishappenings, is hard to judge.

It'S also not about the artists only, but also the producing and publishing companies.