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Darren Waters

YouTube row reflects online minefield

  • Darren Waters
  • 9 Mar 09, 16:34 GMT

You might have thought that the sounds of brakes being slammed on in the 100% legal, 24/7 digital content world had long since faded into the distance.

But try and watch a video of Leona Lewis singing on YouTube UK in the next few days and you will quickly realise that the digital world is not so switched on and simple as you might have previously thought.

YouTube in the UK is blocking access to all premium music videos because of a failure to reach agreement with the Performing Right Society over a new license to stream content. It is a reflection of the byzantine world of music rights online.

Despite the fact that YouTube has deals in place with three of the four major record labels in the world it still has to seek a separate deal with music publishers, many of whom use the PRS, in order to get rights to the music and lyrics in each music video.

YouTube UK is saying that the fees charged by the PRS in the UK are "prohibitive" and would mean it would lose money on each click of a video.

It begs the question: If true, who can make a business in the online music streaming world if Google cannot?

There may be an element of "brinkmanship" by YouTube in all of this. There's no suggestion that the PRS was seeking a block to all music video content while discussions continued.

Indeed, when I spoke to the PRS today they seemed taken aback by this move by YouTube. Later they made clear that the first they had heard about this move was when I had telephoned to tell them.

As their boss Steve Porter said: "We were shocked and disappointed to receive a call late this afternoon informing us of Google's drastic action which we believe only punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent."

Pointedly, in the statement released to the press by the PRS the final line reads: Google had revenues of $5.7bn in the last quarter of 2008.

But regardless of the motives of YouTube's tactics and the PRS' response this is a much wider issue.

Last year, popular US online streaming service Pandora had to close its doors to listeners outside of the US because it said it could not afford a licence with the PRS and the labels.

Pandora boss Tim Westergren said in an e-mail to users in the UK that the rases were "far too high to allow ad supported radio to operate and so, hugely disappointing and depressing to us as it is, we have to block the last territory outside of the US."

Pandora is not alone: Real Networks, MySpace UK and Imeem have all had problems getting a music video or music streaming business of the ground because of this issue.

You can hear the frustration clearly when Tim Westergren wrote: "It continues to astound me and the rest of the team here that the industry is not working more constructively to support the growth of services that introduce listeners to new music and that are totally supportive of paying fair royalties to the creators of music.

"I don't often say such things, but the course being charted by the labels and publishers and their representative organizations is nothing short of disastrous for artists whom they purport to represent -- and by that I mean both well known and indie artists."

YouTube is a little more sanguine: "We value the creativity of musicians and song writers and have worked hard with rights-holders to generate significant online revenue for them and to respect copyright.

"But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before."

Other UK companies too have complained loudly about the issue.

Martin Stiksel, from successful UK-based firm Last.FM, said recently: "We need a total overhaul of how digital content is licensed and distributed on the web. I'd like to see one single compulsory licence for digital content holders: for music, royalties could be distributed according to how often it is played."

Of course, while parts of the the music industry and firms like YouTube struggle to reach deals consumers must be scratching their heads in amazement at such obstacles to delivering legal content in a timely and straightforward fashion.


Rory Cellan-Jones

Broadband: Are you being served?

  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 9 Mar 09, 13:26 GMT

Reading Ed Richards' answers to your questions about broadband regulation, a couple of things strike me.

Firstly, it's clear that super-fast broadband - and how to get it to everyone who might want or need it - is arguably the most important issue now for the regulator.

But what also seems clear is that, for many broadband users, it's not the future that's the issue - it's the poor service that they're currently getting from their providers. And it's not at all clear that customers are being effectively served - either by the industry or by the regulator.

broadband mapWhen we did our Broadband Britain series last year, we broke all records in terms of audience response - in 48 hours, around 60,000 people plotted their broadband speeds and, in many cases, vented their frustration that they were not getting what they thought they'd been promised.

ofcomAnd, when we asked for questions for Ed Richards, the recurrent themes were frustrations about current speeds, the poor state of your local network and dodgy dealings by the providers.

The problem is that Ofcom is in some ways a victim of its own success - having delivered the competitive broadband market that was its aim, that market is so competitive that telecom companies seem to be cutting corners in a desperate attempt to win customers.

asaMr Richards was very eager to mention Ofcom's voluntary code on the advertising of broadband speed (we have no information yet on whether that is having an impact), but also keen to stress that deciding whether claims about speed were accurate was up the Advertising Standards Authority. And it turns out that customer complaints are nothing to do with him anyway.

oteloI didn't realise that until I took a look at Ofcom's website. At the top of a list of What We Do Not Do comes "disputes between you and your telecoms provider". That turns out to be the job of the Telecommunications Ombudsman - or Otelo. Feeling embarrassed that I'd never even heard of this body (how many of you have?), I headed for its most recent annual report. There I found that it had investigated nearly 5,000 complaints in the last year (2007/8), with a large proportion from one company - unnamed in the report.

There are high hurdles for getting your complaint heard by Otelo - your telecom supplier must have signed up to the scheme and has 12 weeks to resolve the issue before it can be passed to the ombudsman, although that period is being reduced to eight weeks.

And what were the big issues for those complaining? The annual report says that the common theme is poor service. That includes "erroneous transfer from another supplier" - the infamous practice known as "slamming" - and "loss of broadband or substantially reduced speed". And there is this paragraph about complaints over speed:

"...customers were promised high-speed broadband but the service failed to match either their resulting expectations or the company's claims. Claims were phrased in the terms of 'speeds up to 8Mb per second', which, while not inaccurate, were potentially misleading because the text of the advert failed to inform customers that only a relatively small percentage of subscribers could receive more than about 6Mbps and 50% would be able to receive less than 5Mbps."

So how many of those complaints about speed claims were ever resolved in the customer's favour - and were any sanctions imposed on companies? Otelo tell me it is not its role to impose general sanctions - that is Ofcom's job.

But in another area - slamming - it seems clear that just about every miscreant gets away with it. A document I've seen from Ofcom shows that in 2007, the regulator received 16,013 complaints about this practice - and presumably passed many of them on to Otelo. But over the same period, just one fine was imposed on a telecom company.

cisasAnd I've just learned that the whole business is even more complicated than I thought. There is another body you can complain to - CISAS, the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme. So my conclusion? If you feel that you have been mistreated or ripped off by your broadband, prepare for a long and complex journey through the regulatory maze.

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