A subject very dear to my heart.
He and I don't see eye to eye.
Today he re-posted a post from 2012 in his blog, "Music • Tech • Policy" that I thought I'd comment on - but he uses WordPress and the widget there wanted me to give them my password in order to leave a comment.
No thanks - so here.
A casual example of how Google profits from lyric piracy and screws songwriters
June 4, 2012 by Chris Castle
I just happened to get a call from a songwriter about an illegal use of the lyrics from his songs. Thus we found http://www.lyrics007.com registered in–wait for it….China. Statshow estimates the monthly revenue is $41,000.00, 112,000,000 annual visitors and Google indexes over 600,000 pages.
After a little poking I found that Lyrics007 has just about any song you would want and–I know this will come as a shock–plenty of advertising. Served by? Google, of course. In fact, we saw plenty of ads for Google Play itself as well as YouTube partner promotions.
Little Big Town promotes Google Play and McDonalds as well as some drug ad for birth control:
IMAGE 1
Not only that, but Google is serving this illegal site ads for the H20 Festival and the Warped Tour to help a pirate site stay in business–oh, and make money for Google, of course.
IMAGE 2
And you know where the AdChoices “Free Music Download” ad goes to?
IMAGE 3
And then if Bob Dylan thought that getting a Presidential medal would get him any copyright protection, boy was he wrong:
...
[Read the rest and see the images at the link below]
To which I replied:
Why demonize Google? They're innovating all kinds of cool new ways to monetize music online using digital networking best practices.
You don't really want Google (all search engines) to stop listing do you?
What you really want is a bigger slice of an increasingly bigger online pie. Why not just say so?
I firmly believe that Artists should get 50% of all revenues derived from their work; so now that record companies no longer have a role in publishing and distribution - artists need to form a union of artists/publishers/distributors that fights for 50% of all revenues from all sources globally.
Google is your 'friend' - make the best deal you can - but not with threats to sue your friend (re: partner) - but with Artist's Unity! (and lawyers).
:)
Michael Holloway.
Singer-songwriter,
Toronto
P.S. Ethnocentric slurs aimed at China (cold war anti-communism?), and plays to divisive politics (moderating toxic effects of birth control pills) are very disturbing. Chris, please take the high road in this.
MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY - June 4, 2012 | "A casual example of how Google profits from lyric piracy and screws songwriters" by Chris Castle | http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/a-casual-example-of-how-google-profits-from-lyric-piracy-and-screws-songwriters/
mh
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