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"YouTube users can now download all songs for free, which means there’s no need for anybody to buy music from iTunes anymore"

More like: Users can pay for a service that allows them to cache songs for offline playback in their YouTube app. It's not free and it's not like users are downloading the MP3s.

It's easy to download any youtube as mp3 - try googling for it, there are multiple services that offer that for free. Anything on Youtube is basically free as mp3.

The same thing exists for basically all the music streaming services, at least the ones that are in a browser.

Edit: And in fact, this whole thread is kind of a red herring. We already had this same conversation about DRM, and it turned out people did indeed go to paid services when it's easy to use them. It turns out many millions of people will pay to stream music, even when there are many ways to get music for free for a little more effort.

Same thing here. As far as I've heard, it's for offline listening, not download and have a file forever. The file will probably live in your youtube app and it will require breaking into it to get the music for free. I'm sure there will quickly be programs to do that, but most people won't care.

Want to add an anecdote here. Even though there are multiple options to get free songs, I still renew my Nokia Mixradio (earlier Nokia Music) every quarter. It feels good to be a legitimate user and the convenience is welcome(if only mixradio+ with 320kbps downloads starts working, things would be perfect). So, if YouTube offers a similar well priced service, I would happily pay, regardless of if there was a free way to get that mp3/4. Dirt for Safari Books.

Ditto for Safari books. (not dirt)

I don't know why it makes you feel good to support the recording industry in any way. You're not a legitimate user of the artists, you're a legitimate user of the recording industry, which is a bunch of evil bastards who live off the backs of the artists without contributing all that much. It should make you feel terrible that 95 cents out of every dollar you contribute goes to support this: http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ (15 years old and still on the ball).

Every penny you contribute to these criminal assholes is hurting the artists you love. The sooner the recording industry goes bankrupt, the sooner we can move on to something better.

I've yet to meet a service that i can't download the music from.

(not to mention a quick google for artist - track [zippy|mp3skull|hulk|mp3|etc] typically will give a download link with next to no effort)

Certainly such services exist, but I don't see the relevance to either the OP or the post you replied directly to.

This is about an official service offered by Google/Youtube.

If there was a news story about a new video streaming service, would you reply "all the movies are already on the Pirate Bay"?

That's not the point swombat is trying to make. You can easily rip a Youtube clip into MP3, or just download the video for later playing. I even have an app on my iPhone, McTube, that allows me to do exactly that. YouView on Mac gives you the same option. I used these apps to cache my youtube subscription overnight, as I have unlimited internet after midnight, but otherwise I am limited to 15gigs/mo.

The point is, you can't just as easily rip content from Spotify, Pendora, or any of the other streaming services.

I can always play a song and record it. YouTube doesn't even allow downloading in 1080p anymore.

Enough with this idiotic copyright bullshit. If you don't want people to copy your stuff, stop publishing it! We don't need copyright. Why is the law enforcement that I pay for with my tax money working to prevent alice from copying something bob put out in public?

Now if bob took alice's secret documents, and put them out for the world to see I can understand. However, this copyright mess is out of control. Please... Let's put an end to this nonsense.

YouTube doesn't even allow downloading in 1080p anymore.

Offtopic, but what do you mean YouTube doesn't "allow" downloading in 1080p? If you can watch it in 1080p, you can download it in 1080p.

It might be possible, I don't know but it is definitely not convenient.

What are you talking about? I just downloaded a clip vie YouView from YouTube in 4K, just to see if it would work.

Try downloading one of the videos from a channel name that ends in Vevo...

I strongly recommend youtube-dl. It's a small command line utility that will do the ripping for you, at adjustable (default max) quality and won't try to show you ads, send you spam mail, or put annoying stuff in the file metadata. It just works like

    youtube-dl -x [video link]

For now, yes. But keep in mind that Google is one of the proponents of EME (the DRM in browser). It might not be easy in the future.

http://www.clipconverter.cc/

> it also demands that it happens on release day

No it doesn't. It says right there in what you quoted that it doesn't.

> "The foregoing will be subject to reasonable quantity of limited-time exclusive promotional offers (in each case, with a single third party partner) (“Limited Exclusives”), as long as a) Provider provides Google with comparable exclusive promotional offers and b) the quantity and duration of such Limited Exclusives do not frustrate the intent of this Agreement."

And AFAIK the common case of music labels is to license an entire catalog or not

Did you read the clause you quoted and actually think about what it means?

1) The time limited offer can only be with ONE single third party.

2) You must provide Google with comparable offers (when they might not be a suitable partner for comparable offers).

Sure, but what it doesn't mean is that it "Removes windowing for artists", as was claimed.

One problem with this whole discussion is that we have no previous contract to compare to. It's possible these are all new conditions or it's possible these are exactly the same clauses except with the subscription service mentioned.

Edit: In fact, here's the iTunes similar clause:

> "Except for a special circumstance, such as an exclusive, limited-time, one-off promotion for particular COMPANY Content, or for a reason beyond COMPANY’s control (e.g., a third party contractual restriction), or as otherwise agreed by the Parties, COMPANY (or a third party designated by COMPANY in writing and approved by ITUNES) shall commence delivery of all existing COMPANY Content as soon as reasonably possible following the Effective Date, and prospectively during the Term, for just cleared COMPANY Content and new releases, at least in time for ITUNES to begin selling eMasters the earlier of a general release date, provided by COMPANY, or when any other distributor is permitted to begin selling, or making commercially available, COMPANY Content in any format."[1]

essentially, absent exclusive one-off promotions, all the company's music has to be provided to iTunes, and new music has to be made available on the general release date or when other distributors can start selling it, whichever is earlier.

[1] http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/i...

An interpretation in Europe I read suggested that the problem comes in when an indie artist wants to hold back streaming, which provides virtually no income in comparison to MP3 and CD sales. The agreement apparently suggests that artists must release to one or more streaming services at the same time as retail services.

IANAL though, and don't even understand the contract after reading it.

I've updated it to clarify what was meant, also, itunes does a better job of acknowledging other companies, and date references.

Your comment would've be much more civil, and possibly even more persuasive, if you had left off the first sentence.

It wasn't meant to be nasty but the text quoted by the person to my mind actively contradicted his point. It stated that in very limited circumstances may "something" be done and was used as evidence that "something" wasn't controlled. I added the "and think about" part of my response when I reread and realised that the restrictiveness wasn't completely explicit although it was pretty clear. I really felt that the parent hadn't properly considered the meaning of what they had quoted.

Um... no, it says you can have a reasonable number of exclusive arrangements, each with one third party each.

Those seem like great features for consumers.

Yeah, I'm a little mystified at how they get off demanding that labels make their entire catalog available. That seems like a contract of adhesion to me, in which one side leverages an enormous economic differential to impose unconscionable terms on counterparties - if you want to put anything on YouTube in hopes of monetizing it, you must put everything you have on there.

I'm not expert on contract or antitrust law, but this seems like its sailing very close to the wind. I can see a consumer benefit argument for YouTube, but I can equally see an argument that it's just an incumbent entrenchment strategy designed to keep content providers locked in, a poison pill that prevents them entering into an exclusive arrangement with any other distributor.

Another key point is that large parts of this contract are simply illegal in many parts of Europe.

Illegal is good because the courts can do something with that. Courts in Europe maybe not so much though. The antitrust case against Microsoft took five years, and even after that Microsoft "forgot" to include browser options with Windows for, I think it was another year. For an indie artist relying on music sales for bread and butter and paying the rent that's a virtual death sentence.

On the flipside, infinitely more happened in Europe than in the US during the same period regarding this.

Well, the "entire catalogue" refers only to the content on YouTube (not all the music the Provider has ever created, IIUC), if you look at the definition of "Provider Sound Recordings" and "Provider Music Videos" in Exhibit A.