YouTube is planning on banning indie music labels from their site? That can’t be right.

Despite the headlines, it probably isn’t. After running a misleading article, the Guardian has published a good clarifier.

As far as I can tell, the initial headlines left out a big FROM and IF clause: Indies will be blocked FROM the new Youtube subscription music-streaming service IF they don’t agree to the contract YouTube is offering. (The contract may be unfair, favor the majors, etc. but that’s still a big FROM and IF.)

The Guardian article then usefully clarifies just how muddy the waters are by pointing to conflicting and ambiguous evidence that YouTube may in fact ALSO block unsigned indies from the free service OR prevent the indies from monetizing their presence in the free service.

BTW, when the original kerfuffle arose, a Reddit thread was the best source of info I found. Reddit got it righter.

Categories: journalism dw