While the mentions of YouTube being shitty to content creators in this thread are completely legit, none of it applies to this situation, as was already mentioned. Channels like this one that just upload other artists' music have no real claim to being in the right and an artist or label can very much legitimately make a claim against them. It doesn't matter if they're doing it for promotional purposes, aren't making money, had permission, whatever. We're definitely on the same page here.

That being said, there's (obviously?) a very large difference between just uploading someone else's music vs being an entertainer yourself. Continuing, if you've still got some issue with entertainers "expecting" to be paid for their work and think that they should "fuck off and get a real job" ... well, is that not a kind of strange viewpoint to have, considering this is a forum focused on heavy metal music fandom?

I don't blame at all for your outsider-looking-in viewpoint, though. I don't think very highly of a whole lot of people on YouTube, and the most popular figures tend to also be pretty trashy, so it seems pretty damn normal for folks to feel how you do.

You upload content that isn't yours without doing anything significantly 'transformative' to it, so to speak? No ifs, no buts, your channel goes down. I completely agree with this channel being taken down.

And I'm willing to bet that for any album the guy featured on his channel, a minute proportion of views of the video for said album actually translated to sales of that album. For many, music uploads on YT are nothing more than a way to stream the music for free. There's no impetus for any viewer to buy said music, it isn't like this guy was offering previews of the album in the form of audio clips or even a singular track from the album (the latter would still be wrong to do but at least there'd be some sort of enticement on the viewer's part to buy the album for the rest of the tracks.) Any viewer could easily use a video to mp3 converter to obtain a digital copy of the album, in this way it probably hurts the sales of an album more by uploading obscure music that otherwise wouldn't have videos on YT. Just uploading them verbatim doesn't equate to 'promotion', even if the link to bandcamp is featured in the description (because so many people read the description, right?)

Don't care what the guy's intentions were, it's right that the channel is gone.

I know a couple of musicians claiming that those uploads actually helped them sell more copies. Apparantly there actually was an increased number of people buying it after it ended up on yt.
One even got a little mad when his label striked that upload and forced it to go off, stating that "his label hasn't understood how things work these days".

actually if you read some of the comments on his facebook post, many now quite large names thank him for getting them to that point so apparently for those it worked out quite well.

I'm surprised by the level of criticism in this thread. The uploader received permission from artists/labels/music owners for every video he uploaded and he would take videos down if for some reason those artists/labels/music owners changed their minds and no longer wanted their music on his platform. It was a mutual agreement between two parties, so no one is "leeching" off of anyone. He was happy, fans were happy, artists were happy.... Then one guy from one label comes along and gets pissed at him and all the sudden he's taking advantage of everyone?

And the idea that artists should just upload the music to their own channel instead doesn't hold any weight for any band that is largely unknown. If some random black metal band with 30 subscribers uploads their album to YouTube they will be lucky to break 1,000 views. It is a no brainer for them to decide to have their music uploaded to a platform that will reach significantly more people. You can't even monetize anything on YouTube if you are below a certain subscriber limit anyway (I think its 5,000), so it is in any unknown band's interest to allow their music on his channel, and that is why so many agreed to do it. Of course they will also have their music on bandcamp, spotify, etc., but in today's landscape you need every avenue you can get if you want any degree of success.

With regard to the comment about YouTube being a full time job, this was not a full time job for this guy, but it is for many others. There are people on YouTube creating incredibly well produced videos (look up Corridor and RocketJump) that require a lot of time, talent, and hard work. To deny the idea of anyone legitimately making money off of YouTube is nothing more than a demonstration of ignorance. Even the thought of burger flipping as a more respectable profession is ludicrous.

It seems to me that most of the criticism here doesn't even apply to this channel. Even if one were to ascribe the most malicious intentions to him, at the end of the day his channel was well regarded by fans, artists, and labels.

This is exactly what I was thinking. With their album on this channel they were almost guaranteed to have at least 1.000 views, which is a good start for a debut album by a completely unknown (one-man) project.
If musicians had thought it wasn't good for them, then he wouldn't have had thousands of uploaded videos. That was a huge, useful collection.

Finally some logic in this thread. Assuming he's telling the truth, the labels and distros were licensing and monetizing the content of his videos, so they were getting all the exposure and all the ad revenue from his uploads of their material. The views and ad revenue would never be anywhere near whatever it was on his videos if the bands and labels uploaded to their own channels. People subscribe to youtube channels for CONTENT. How much content can one unknown band that uploads one EP every six months create compared to a platform that can upload a new full length every single day? He had the platform, he had the subscriber base and the audience. They all helped him build this platform by not striking him down immediately and eventually requesting that he upload their albums to his channel. If he was profiting at all, the relationship was symbiotic.

So this pest productions guy saw ads on some video and decided to kill the channel and as a consequence the viewership and ad revenue potential of hundreds of bands and however many labels and distros.

For people who don't use youtube much, several of the bigger labels like Metal Blade and Relapse have started uploading full releases to youtube themselves. So they must not be worried about people downloading the video and losing out on money, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

Even more. I'm amazed about why we're talking in this subforum about a Youtube channel been closed.

I was wondering if this should be placed here an then opened it because it's related to metal music. If moderators think it should be in The Tavern they can displace it.

A metal related channel got closed. It's not that hard to figure out.

So now we discuss about Youtube rights policy in the Metal subfoum? Cool.

Or we discuss the relevance of album streams on youtube and the releation between those chanels and the bands and labels?

Both discussions are present here. Read first, complain second

Atmospheric black metal albums was a huge YouTube channel with hundreds of video and followers. Its true that the quality has dropped in recent times but I personally discovered great bands on this channel. Its beyond me why some people are so critic with other people finding good bands on YouTube.

And yes, many young bands received a much bigger exposure thanks to this channel and sold many more albums than it was expected. Because of this many bands were sad with this channel´s closure. For the record, he used to post the videos with the band´s permission and providing all the links. More than once I have purchased the album following those links, and like me many others.

I guess this has been a good leason for the guy so hopefully he will take more care of certain legal aspects with the "new" channel. Also, I expect that the quality will improve and be the same it was some time ago. Mistakes are a good chance to learn and improve, and in this case go to the roots and improve the level .

I’m baffled that you’re this clueless.

That is correct. I have a collection of well over 1,000 records, tapes and CD's. I listen to everything before I buy it on YouTube. A guy doing a one man Black Metal project is losing out on hundreds/thousands of views, that he normally would not receive. Every person in the world can disagree with me, but the label owner was an idiot to have the channel taken down.

Pest Production is also the label that fucked up the release of the latest Last Moon's Dawn album so badly, the band had to repress the whole thing by themselves and stated that they won't work with a label ever again.
-pressing took ages (prob. Not their fault)
-wrong version of the album on the CD
-included the booklet of a completely different band
-bad communication
And stuff like that.
The band went through an odyssey of bad luck for several months due to this.

And now this.

I suppose there's also an issue with communication, considering that Pest is a Chinese label (maybe some of them are not able to process the English message well).
"Cultural differences" might've had an impact as well, similarly to this:

After all I still think the main issue is interpersonal conflict that ended up with "revenge".

You're right.



Both you do realize this thread remains in this subforum because it derived in the second discussion, right? Cool.

I know first hand that those paltry amount of views would have meant virtually nothing, and would have been even more useful to them if the artist themselves had uploaded it for reasons I have previously stated in this thread. You can "disagree" all you want but I have actual experience and data that inform my perspective, versus your... intuition? This is one topic that I can confidently say I know a great deal about.

I still collect royalties from my band. Not millions, but its a paycheck. I have toured, worked the merch booth and did mail order back in the day. Disagree if you want. I am fine with that. I have said all I can say on this topic. I remember when bands lived and die from the work of tape traders.

I can not verify that, but I believe you have some "first hand" experience.
Maybe you expect too much. 1000 views on YT can corelate to zero or one bandcamp support. People are lazy.
Sidenote: Judging by the sound of Hexenkraft, you might like Sarcophagic:https://sarcophagic.bandcamp.com.

Legal issues aside, I discovered great music on this channel. I purchased many albums by bands I liked.

What exactly is getting people to these lesser known band's YouTube channels in the first place? Don't get me wrong, I'd agree that the purchases-per-view on the band's YouTube channel would be higher, but the number of views would be paltry compared to what they get on a genre-wide YT channel. That's not to say that entire albums need to be posted, 1-2 singles could be enough to generate interest but it needs to be presented from a centralized channel where people who already like said genre are actually going to see it.

somehow others have different experiences going by the comments:
"Mateusz Sworakowski Thank you for uploading Ennoven a few years ago. I've seen my statistics on Bandcamp and I constantly had a lot of visitors from your channel.
I did read your whole explanation and it made me quite sad and really angry. PM me, I'll send you a copy of my CD. At least I can do that.
You did a great job, I loved your channel and I really hope to hear about you soon."

"Shylmagoghnar From our experience I can only say that you have made a huge positive impact on our early development as a band and I have no doubt this has been the case for many others like us. I've always found you an upstanding gentleman with respect and love for the music. No matter what happens, we are eternally grateful for that and we hope you will find a new route to express your passion for the music (and hopefully be able to maintain your own life while doing so!)."

"Russell Silva This channel was amazing and it really helped me out. With all the album's uploaded to this channel that I had, all well over 30k views total.
I paid you for one album, that was to help out. After that you never asked me for money to upload any of my albums.. and I've always had my music distributed so it was monetized of course but I ALWAYS got the money from that.
I don't agree that the channel was removed because in reality, closing this channel down hurts the black metal community more than it helps it. I hope you can get it back up and running soon."

and many others seem to be very grateful to this guy so maybe it is helpful after all for others?

Well heres the thing.

I have read a lot of responses getting all self righteous on this guy saying "Well if he didn't actually create the music, he shouldn't have uploaded it, blah blah blah."

It's not as black and white as that. I would agree that if this guy was making significant money on these uploads, then he would be morally and ethically (and likely legally as well) obligated somehow to cut the bands in on a little of the revenue. But seriously, how many people upload songs onto Youtube and earn little, if any, revenue on their channels?

And more to the point, how many times, on this very board, do people link to Youtube uploads of songs? It seems like people have little issue with that. And how many of you guys actually go to Youtube to listen to new, old, obscure, and original music you can't hear anywhere else? LOTS of you guys, I bet. I know I do- but lets be clear: this is not the same thing as file sharing, Napster-style. You are streaming something, not downloading it, or posting up something that is available for downloading (onto an I-Pod or being ripped onto a CD)

And to be honest, I have bought a LOT of music after first checking out the songs on Youtube and liking them. If I could even FIND the physical copies to buy, that is. I have tried for years to find a non-bootleg copies of Vlad Tepes stuff and well, good luck with that.

I was glad to see Atmo Black Metal channel come back. I had a few things I had 'liked' to look up later, manage to find about 75% of them again. I will probably spend the next 10 years wonder what those other bands were, heh.

You don't know what you're talking about. Stop being retarded and don't derail the thread for dumb reasons.

BACK ON TOPIC:

It is good to see bands starting to utilize their own Youtube channels for recognition and giving a chance for fans to check out their material without being badgered by Bandcamp's purchase reminder which stops playback after the first song. Saor, Sojourner, and a few others on Avantgarde Records have done this already. I, Voidhanger already had most of their backlog up to about a year uploaded to their channel before apparently stopping.

The advantage 3rd party channels like this have for fans though is that they merchandise across labels. It's a lot easier for someone listening to a Progenie Terestre Pura album to discover, say, Mare Cognitum if both bands had albums uploaded to the same channel.

Too bad, was a good channel. I think for bigger labels and established bands having a free stream of full albums could be a problem, but it was a good source of exposure for smaller bands. I know the channel drove traffic to my bands bandcamp / merch, if anything it helped drive sales as it always linked to where to buy the music. And I can attest to the fact that the channel got the go ahead from me to post the stuff.

The whole fee was probably a mistake in terms of staying on Youtubes good side. Can't blame them though if they were in a tough financial situation.

I do and you know it.
Anyway, the main problem is that Youtube was NOT meant to host music but it has been used for this without consecuenses for too long.
https://www.youtube.com/musicpremium