Indie Music Labels Slam YouTube Streaming Plans

YouTube may not be showing much love to the independent music community and the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) has a lot to say about that.

WIN is an organization that represents the global independent music community.  They issued a statement slamming YouTube for reportedly planning to block the content of members who do not sign a new agreement for Youtube’s paid streaming service (which is reported to be close to launching)…calling this “unnecessary and indefensible, not to mention questionable and potentially damaging to YouTube itself”.

Their statement further communicated that YouTube (owned by Google)  already negotiated separate agreements with major labels including Sony, Universal, and Warner…but have yet to reach a deal for independent labels.

Many indie labels may not have the resources or customer base that major record labels do, but  don’t you think indie labels should also receive favorable terms and have the ability to negotiate terms, like the major record labels do?

Other artists such as Radiohead have criticized such services over the fees that they receive when their songs are streamed.

YouTube is the largest online source of free streaming music, so they understandably have a lot of power.

We’ll need to stay tuned to see the cumulative effect their upcoming paid streaming service will have on the music industry.