Pete Waterman feels exploited. He received a royalty cheque for just eleven quid from Google for use of Never Gonna Give You Up on YouTube last year. The video had 154 million views from rickrolling victims and he has complained that this is a derisory fee.
Take a moment for that to sink in. Pete wants to be paid every time someone gets rickrolled.
There is of course the whole argument about whether songs played on the internet should be treated the same as songs played on the radio. Should those 154 million views be treated like 154 million separate plays or 1 play to an audience of 154 million people? Airplay royalties use an incredibly complicated formula that was designed for commercial radio stations and doesn't apply easily to the different delivery mechanism of the internet. That's an interesting debate. But I'm not going to have it here.
The real issue is that the listenership in this case is unwilling. Tricking someone into listening is not the same as having an audience. That would be like the US Marines billing the Taliban for the scrap value of any lead they receive to the chest. The top search result for Never Gonna Give You Up on YouTube currently has a little over 16 million views. I Should Be So Lucky by Kylie Minogue has 740,000. Both songs were co-written by Pete Waterman, both spent five weeks at number one. Only one of them was used as the payload for an internet bait-and-switch prank.
Pete Waterman should count himself very lucky that he is not required to pay rickrolling victims.
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joefelice
May 13th 2009
2. No one likes you, Luis Villazon.
So much for trying to emulate pwnage, the favorite creative writing phenomenon of socially awkward 14-year-olds. Success looks like more than one comment. Fail looks like a young Hector Elizondo in a black turtleneck.
This piece is supposed to be pwnage...right? It's not journalism.
1-All advertising is directed at an unwilling subject. I don't want to see the ads on this page. And while I think your work is **** this site will get 3 pageviews of revenue from me, not in spite of, but because, you suck.
2-Whoopee cushions cost money. Practical jokes aren't free. Appropriating a work for a purpose other than the original does not eliminate its value. The market decided Waterman's song was the best for its purpose. (It replaced duckrolling, a video of a duck on wheels.) Condoms appropriated as water balloons don't become free. You should know.
3-Who should be paid instead of the creator? Ad revenue is generated. It has to go somewhere. Waterman got a small sliver after every other party took their cut. But you don't think the originators of content deserve even what tablescraps they get after the corporate resellers chow down. And you want to be a writer? Stick to zoology.
That's Pwnage.
And for great justice, Pete Waterman is also an idiot because his beef should be with the record company. It was their duty to monetize or remove the song from YouTube, both easy things to do (I've done it), and they dragged their feet. That's why he gets £11.
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avi
April 14th 2009
1. The whole music licence charge thing is iniquitous in my view. If someone buys something that should be the end of it and if he or she sees it on Youtube or anywhere else they are watching an advert and we don't pay to watch adverts especially ones we were tricked into seeing.
We're about to exhibit at the Gadget Show next weekend and we've had to pay the greedy and loathsome PPL and PRS over £100 for the pleasure of playing background music for three days. Other people with shops and garages are being forced to pay for licences because their radios can be overheard. It is a disgraceful situation and needs sorting. I hope Youtube shoves it up the lot of them!
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