Image Credit: Dave J Hogan / Getty Images
Thom Yorke has broadened his criticisms of the digital distribution of music, following up on his comments regarding Spotify by comparing YouTube “stealing art” from creators to the Nazis during the second world war.
The Radiohead frontman revealed his opinion of YouTube to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, expressing his disapproval of the video-sharing site and its parent company Google. Saying that he “definitely doesn’t use YouTube” and that he instead finds new music from the website Boomkat, Yorke continued: “A friend of mine told me about this app to skip commercials on YouTube … They put advertising before any content, making a lot of money and yet, artists are not paid or are paid small sums, and apparently this is fine for them [YouTube].”
Yorke is referencing AdBlocker in this comment (which is a browser extension, not an app), which prevents adverts from playing on YouTube videos and would therefore ensure that content creators wouldn’t receive the revenue generated by them. He continued: “The funny thing is that YouTube has said ‘that’s not fair’ [to AdBlocker]. You know? They say it’s not fair – the people who put adverts in front of any piece of content, making a load of money, while artists don’t get paid or are paid laughable amounts – and that seems fine to them. But if [YouTube] don’t get a profit out of it, it’s not fair.”
It’s unclear how much money musicians generate from YouTube ad revenue given that the site does not allow its content creators to reveal specifics regarding their earnings, but given that there are very few major players in the online streaming game, Google and services such as Spotify can continue to dictate how much (or how little) artists earn without facing much opposition, given that there are few competitors that musicians can turn to and removing their output from these services would significantly reduce their audience. This isn’t ideal, of course, but Yorke’s comments would suggest that YouTube and Spotify are the outliers when it comes to the percentages they offer to artists, when in actuality the whole market is tailored towards given the distributor/service the highest cut possible, while creators are given fractions of a penny per stream.
Image Credit: BANARAS KHAN / Getty Images
But Yorke continued with his criticism of YouTube and Google, going on to make a particularly odd comparison between the site and the behavior of the Nazis during World War II. The musician continued: “I don’t have the solution to these problems. I only know that they’re making money with the work of loads of artists who don’t get any benefit from it. People continue to say that this is an era where music is free, cinema is free. It’s not true.
“The creators of services make money – Google, YouTube. A huge amount of money, by trawling, like in the sea – they take everything there is. ‘Oh, sorry, was that yours? Now it’s ours. No, no, we’re joking – it’s still yours’. They’ve seized control of it – it’s like what the Nazis did during the second world war. Actually, it’s like what everyone was doing during the war, even the English – stealing the art of other countries. What difference is there?”
Yorke isn’t exactly known for mincing his words (he referred to Spotify as “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse”) but even by his standards, this comparison is more than a little hyperbolic. However, despite his employment of Godwin’s Law, there should be more artists like Yorke who are willing to fight up for musicians’ rights when it comes to being paid adequately for their art. With that being said, it’d be more beneficial for his cause is Yorke acknowledged that the problem is not necessarily with select companies, but with the market itself. Perhaps Yorke could start his own Tidal, only – y’know – not shit?
