Google vs PRS

Youtube have taken down thousands of music videos from their site. The move is part of a licensing spat between Google, who run the video streaming website Youtube and the Performing Rights Society (PRS), which collects royalties for musicians. Google claim that the licensing terms proposed by PRS are prohibitively expensive, and would lead to a financial loss every time a video is played.


Understandably the move has created quite a buzz across the internet. Youtube is a staple of the contemporary online experience, and a move like this is guaranteed a huge amount of public attention.

My feelings are that the dramatic and wholesale removal of music videos by major artists is not just a strongarm negotiating tactic, but a calculated public relations move. Google is well aware that widespread loyalty to its brand will motivate public opinion against PRS, and it is has every interest in dragging this tiff into the public sphere. The PRS on the other hand has received bad press recently for demanding license fees from all manner of unlikely and inappropriate venues, (including police stations and workplaces) and is unlikely to receive much sympathy, especially among internet users who have become accustomed to obtaining free music. That Google are appealling to the court of public opinion is made clear by their reference to the Arctic Monkeys, a wildly popular band which rose to prominence through social media sites.

It is an increasingly common opinion that the music industry needs to be rethought, and that the regime run by the PRS is symbolic of a business model who's time has passed. This fallout gives real life form to that debate, and for that reason it will be interesting to see how it pans out. A cultural gulf lies between both sides, and it is the role of communications professionals to bring these differences to the fore.

In particular both sides assign different cultural meaning to Youtube. For PRS, Youtube music videos are an end in themselves. For the vast majority of Youtube users however, Youtube music videos are simply marketing tools, too low quality to be comparable to the final product. The assertion is that while hearing music should be free, music which warrants ownership will be bought. Indeed a comment on the Guardian website suggested that music companies should be paying Youtube for advertising space.