It's sad to see the cinch keep tightening.
 

Interesting that Psy made $2,000,000 from YouTube ads. No wonder Google wants to tap into that.
 
How ironic that Google's motto is "don't be evil" -- the company founded by idealists who quickly sold out to advertisers, the NSA and the Chinese government as soon they got a taste of serious money. If it really is the root of all evil then it's inevitable then that Google would become evil.
 
Even before Google had become the leading search engine, they'd already started manipulating search results to favor corporate interests who would pay them. Chrome has a handy extension for blocking certain domains - except it prohibits you from blocking any site that has paid Google's fees. They don't just go along with the NSA, they are active collaborators. Unlike the NSA, though, Google makes the vast amounts of information they've collected about you available for purchase.
 
But at least they don't control my telephone...oh wait, they do.

A humorous anecdote from slashdot to lighten the mood...
 

I make nature videos for my YouTube channel, generally in remote wilderness away from any possible source of music. And I purposely avoid using a soundtrack in my videos because of all the horror stories I hear about Rumblefish filing claims against public domain music. But when uploading my latest video, YouTube informed me that I was using Rumblefish's copyrighted content, and so ads would be placed on my video, with the proceeds going to said company. This baffled me. I disputed their claim with YouTube's system — and Rumblefish refuted my dispute, and asserted that: 'All content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content: Entity: rumblefish; Content Type: Musical Composition.' So I asked some questions, and it appears that the birds singing in the background of my video are Rumblefish's exclusive intellectual property.

 

bitflipper
A humorous anecdote from slashdot to lighten the mood...
 

I make nature videos for my YouTube channel, generally in remote wilderness away from any possible source of music. And I purposely avoid using a soundtrack in my videos because of all the horror stories I hear about Rumblefish filing claims against public domain music. But when uploading my latest video, YouTube informed me that I was using Rumblefish's copyrighted content, and so ads would be placed on my video, with the proceeds going to said company. This baffled me. I disputed their claim with YouTube's system — and Rumblefish refuted my dispute, and asserted that: 'All content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content: Entity: rumblefish; Content Type: Musical Composition.' So I asked some questions, and it appears that the birds singing in the background of my video are Rumblefish's exclusive intellectual property.

 
That doesn't sound humorous, that sounds scary, sad and infuriating.
 

Sounds like you have to go to Court about everything nowadays.
But I do not use Google but I am using Google but I use this:
https://startpage.com/eng/download-startpage-plugin.html
 
 

How many serious music listeners would use youtube over Pandora, Spotify or any one of the other big music streaming services?  Maybe someone who is super big into music videos? I think the majority of people who listen to music on a commute aren't going to have the time to watch a  music video.They are going after another kind of consumer here.
 
If youtube adopts a video free service then maybe they are on the same playing field....
 
Music for money..not music for art sake  has been the motto for a long long time. Does money drive art or does art drive money? Art has been expression exploited. Is art created for the soul purpose of money really art in a real sense? or is it some kind of a compromise? Art has become a product instead of an expression.If art generates income for the artist, no different than making money from anything else..the key thing being, the art came first for the sake of itself, and then came the money...not the same as attempting art as a product line...people buy it, but what does that prove?  That we can commercialize it, and for someone who's main goal is money that's all that matters.Artists and greedy monopolists are a seedy mix.

It looks like the issue of ads on copyrighted content submissions is a bit more complicated than it looks. Rumblefish explains that the ads are a Google fee (presumably kicking back some portion to Rumblefish/Friendly Music) that they collect because there is copyrighted content, not because there is copyright infringement. So if you have bought a synchronization license for your video music, that license will immunize you from copyright infringement, and presumably also from the DMCA requirement that the copyright owner can demand Google take down your infringing video (which makes no money for either Google or Friendly), but it has no bearing on whether Google, as a matter of policy explained in the user agreement you accept, will choose to post the ads and share the revenue with others.
 
That policy benefits the copyright holders because they can make money from the "broadcast" of their music, even if they have already been paid a license for its use. And if the music is infringing it gives them a payment for a very low cost, as opposed to a DMCA takedown notice or an infringement lawsuit, which are only worth the money if you are seriously hurting their profits from competition. Of course the payment is also probably pretty low (who responds to these ads anyway?) so the system only makes sense if it can be automated. And if you cast your robot music fishing net wide enough to catch birds singing in the background, and make it even moderately difficult to contest a claim, you are going to collect ad revenue for singing birds from a lot of videos because people will not bother, or will not be able to afford to fight.
 
http://www.rumblefish.com/id/youtube-content-id.php
 
Presumably the money that is collected as a result of "errors" in this system is distributed to Rumblefish clients, who probably do not include anonymous birds, or to the company profits if those clients can't be found.
 

"Interesting that Psy made $2,000,000 from YouTube ads."
2 billion (over) hits. How they count that if watching IP addresses?
7 billion people in the world - how many kids?
4 billion kids - 2 billion adults - that is about 6 billion just there.
Everyone had a different IP address?
(no I am not sure how they count there at utub).
Just seems bogus to me then.
Multiple hits to run up the count that is not suppose to happen.
Find it hard to believe even for a half a minute.

Some people probably found a way around it, and hacked in some numbers on the side.Well?
To me Bogus!
??
 
A billion hits on one song by Bieber whatever his name is.
You know, parents should know what their children are doing.
I think those kids may need more schooling more than anything.

 
 

Starise
How many serious music listeners would use youtube...

I think that "serious" music listeners are a minority. ;)
 
It seems that at some point YouTube became THE media hub where people went to find just about anything - from old commercials, to the theme of that TV show they watched as a kid to any music they may like. Whether there's an official video or even if it's just a fan made clip or just a black screen with the song title... It doesn't really matter.
 
Looking back, even way back, it seems to have become an integral part of practically every private party/social gathering I was going to - at some point, we'd reach that part of the evening where people would gather around the computer and start searching stuff on YouTube.
 
Everybody is familiar with it, unlike Pandora and the others. I do consider myself a serious listener and I've never had any interest in Spotify and the likes.
 
But then, I'm an old school, album-type of guy, and I don't often just go looking for new music just for the sake of it - and when I do, my searches are usually a bit more focused and my intention is to find an album and buy it.
 
 

Couldn't give a rat's arse to be honest. If YT ceases to be what I use it for, then I won't use it any more. Simples.
Google's ownership has already ruined it to some extent anyway IMO, but at the end of the day they, or anyone else, are not obliged to provide a free platform for other people to promote themselves, so I don't get why anyone should feel that anything they do is "unfair".