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This is why we can’t have nice things. With the announcement of YouTube Music Key came a pretty negative response from music artists. A music manager by the name of Irving Azoff, who is big in the music industry and manages artists such as Pharrell Williams and the Eagles, demanded that his clients music be pulled from YouTube. If this was to happen, it would be a punch in the face to YouTube’s new upcoming music service. Azoff is demanding that YouTube pay him more loyalty payments for his clients music to stay up on YouTube or the music videos be pulled from the site completely.
For those of you who don’t know what YouTube Music Key is, it is a new type of music streaming service that YouTube will begin offering some users this week. Said music service will allow users who subscribe to it for $10 a month to download music videos from YouTube as well as watch them completely ad-free. The service will also tie-in to Google Play Music and offer music video playlists based on users listening habits. Essentially a music streaming service except with music videos instead of just music.
While we don’t necessarily agree with Azoff trying to pull his clients music videos off of YouTube, we do understand, from a financial standpoint, why he is doing so. Music artists these days already don’t really make money off of their music any more. They generate their money from tours and swag, or merchandise, music streaming services like Spotify and Google Play Music have changed the music landscape by offering customers much cheaper alternatives to purchasing CD’s and individual songs. Azoff had this to say to the Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Azoff, one of the industry’s most powerful talent managers, is taking on the tech giant on behalf of the 46 songwriters represented by his new company, Global Music Rights, which collects performance royalties from radio stations, digital music services, bars and nightclubs. All of GMR’s songwriters had previously relied on one of the two big performing rights organizations-the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and Broadcast Music Inc.-to collect their public performance money”
This whole situation comes right on the heels of Taylor Swift making headlines by pulling all of her music from the streaming service Spotify due to lack of money being made. It seems like we might be on the verge of artists getting fed up with music streaming services all together. Regardless, we are very interested to see what comes of Azoff attempting to get his clients music videos pulled from YoutTube. Let us know how you think this will end in the comments section below.