>The only difference is now you're on the side of the old guard.

The old guard of self-published independent music creators who distribute their work on multiple digital platforms in order to fully engage with their audience? The likes of which were only made possible by YouTube in the first place?

So that means Google is part of the new guard of controlling and demanding music distributors who lock the artist into a long term contract on their own terms, or the artist can't use their distribution channels in an effort to lock out the distributor's competitors at the expense of the artist.

Yeah, you certainly got that one right...

And just like the really old RIAA system, you can take it or leave it unless you're big enough to bother negotiating with.

In practical terms, YouTube is going to have a hard time launching a music service if everything's already there for free. That would make them little different from Spotify, but with even less profit. We all know how much the music industry hates Spotify.

Wrong! Look at your computer. It's a mix-and-match of a bunch of different components designed to serve you.

Every bit of technology in communications is about sharing, and music is one of the most fundamental forms of communication known to our species. The only way technology changes the world for better is in its application. I honestly, genuinely believe YouTube/Google is not acting in a beneficial method for anybody but themselves/stakeholders.

This would be a direct case of taking a net benefit for convenience for a handful of people (content creators) and the vast, vast world of humans (audience members) and going back to the Patronage system without any of the benefits whatsoever.

> Wrong! Look at your computer. It's a mix-and-match of a bunch of different components designed to serve you.

It's an Apple machine bought by someone else for my use. I had exactly zero say in the matter. It's a mix-and-match, but my opinion doesn't matter.

My choice is to use the machine or not.

EDIT: As for the patronage model, what makes you think we ever left that system? The economics of art have always rested on patronage.

But you're being blatantly ignorant on the mechanics of the world simply to suit your biased perspective. The machine won't work without many of the parts inside, that was my point. Go ahead and pull out the battery, because as you state, mix-and-match is not a viable system.

I'm not going to bother with your postulation regarding the patronage system, because you're arguing from a false premise in a specific circumstance where this particular artist has successfully produced art and made income through a "fans-as-patrons" model that you claim is unworthy of further developing.

I didn't say that alternate models aren't worth developing. I said we haven't moved away from a patronage model. Please don't mistake me.

The items on offer aren't offered as mix-and-match for Zoe. That's unfortunate for her. It's also true of ever other market in which people wish to consume whole goods or services without crafting it in detail themselves.

If Zoe wants a service that gives her the terms she wants, she can go build one. If I want a sandwich exactly the way I like it, I can go build one. I don't have the right to expect McD's to sell me a reuben and Zoe doesn't have the right to demand YouTube meet her on her terms.

If she wants to try and build a mix-and-match system, I wish her good luck. I suspect she'll discover that there's a good reason such things are not common.

I hope that was sarcasm, because that's the most Big Brother thing I've ever read on Hacker News.

Don't question authority. Trust Google. Trust Facebook. We'll make the decisions about your personal property in a way that benefits the "vast majority of people" who own stock in our company.

Please don't conflate imaginary property with physical property.

They have set the terms under which she can have them publish her data. She doesn't like them. She has the choice to walk away.

> They have set the terms under which she can have them publish her data. She doesn't like them. She has the choice to walk away.

That is not an accurate description of the situation. Her music will still be published on YouTube if she doesn't accept their terms and walks away. She will have to take action (endless DMCA requests) if she wants to try to have her data not published on YouTube.

The terms they are offering are not the terms to have her data published on YouTube. They are the terms to get a cut of the money Google makes from her data on YouTube.

What you are describing is how Apple or Amazon work--if an artist walks away from their deals, their content is not on that service.

I don't think that's precisely right either. If I've understood the article correctly, she has three options here: sign up to the new agreement and continue receiving revenue from third party uploads that ContentID matches to her content, stop receiving third-party revenue and leave all third party videos up, or stop receiving the revenue and take all third party videos down.

I'm not sure this would even stop her from getting ad revenue from videos that she uploads herself (the article doesn't discuss this). ContentID accounts are about getting revenue from things other people upload that include your content.

Is Google is going to stop putting ads on her content or remove her content from Youtube? I don't think that's what they're saying. Aren't they just saying they're going to stop paying her. Actually the hell of it is that she doesn't really have the choice to get her content off Youtube at all. Is she going to take her $324/mo payment stream from Spotify and use it to pay for the barrage of DMCA takedown's she's going to need to send to keep her content off Youtube?

Google is saying that the program she operated under previously is going away. She can get on the new program or she can leave.

Google isn't obligated to meet her on arbitrarily chosen terms, so I don't really see the problem here.

I don't think the author here is particularly making the claim of a severe injustice. She also made no allegations of illegal behavior on Google's behalf.

I think the point she's articulating here is that she isn't a "typical" musician making profit from her music. She has hacked out a way to make money from her music that satisfies her fans and doesn't grate upon her own concious. Google has been a big part of that and now they are changing, perhaps for the better for most. But the change is unilateral and creates a personal problem for her.

Afterall, in the end she asks if anyone is starting a new streaming service, therefor leaving the implication that she is open to switch despite monetary detriment any such switch might cause.

Writing a synopsis from her perspective, I would sum up the article as, "Hey Google, I came here in the first place to circumvent the rigid and singular nature of doing business in the music industry "proper" and now you guys are injecting the same kind of problems into your own system. I have a hard time abiding that and I don't know what to do."

She has many options. She just doesn't have options she likes that let her mix what she liked about the past with what she likes about the future.

That's the consequence of choosing to rely on the services of others. You are at their mercy. If you don't like it, well, there's always YCombinator.

I am. It's imaginary - er, intellectual - property. As a result, it makes absolutely no sense to use physical property analogies.

If you don't want to use the services offered on the terms offered, that's your choice. If you don't want other people to use those services with bits that have "your" color on them, then you're up shit creek, because you shouldn't have let other people have them.

> It's that we in tech know we have to choose between what's best for the vast, vast majority of people and what's convenient for a tiny handful.

Except you almost always opt for the convenience of the handful. Early in the life of a company run by savant programmer types, that tiny handful is the engineering team.

As the corporation evolves, the privilege shifts to the lawyers.