YouTube looks to get in industry’s good graces, launches Foundry

As YouTube comes under fire for its alleged misuse of safe harbour rules, the streaming giant continues to rack up good will in the music industry with its development initiatives. The latest is new project YouTube Music Foundry.

Google-owned YouTube hinted at a service to develop music talentin late 2015, hosting two-day Foundry sessions in both Los Angeles in September and in London in December. Videos of those live workshops are set to appear on YouTube this week.

Another Foundry music session will take place inNew Yorkon April 25 with BJ The Chicago Kid, Gemaine, The Range, Built by Titan and Miracles of Modern Science all taking part.

YouTube’s informally launched Foundry initiative aims to give developing artists tools and guidance on how to best optimise their content on the platform; e.g. live streaming video production.

According to reports, YouTube has locked in discussions with certain music industry figures to outline a collaboration to promote artists with a focus on exclusive video content. In return YouTube is apparently offering artists an inclusion in its Web TV series an opportunity to utilise its 2015-launched YouTube Spaces, where artists and filmmakers get in front of and behind the camera, using YouTube’s high-tech production facilities.

If YouTube should wish to enter the battle for exclusive content king – currently lead by Apple Music and Tidal – it may be seen as a good will gesture to vexed rights holders. As previously reported by TMN, major music rights holders, the European Union, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) have expressed their dissatisfaction in YouTube’s payment model.

Currently under the 1998 DMCA Act, services like YouTube can’t be held liable as a result of unlicensedcontent that its users might upload, thus circumventing the normal rules that apply to music licensing.

What’s more, YouTube is currently re-negotiating licensing deals with labels and readying the launch of its paid subscription model YouTube Red. But as IFPI CEO Frances Moore presented the 2015Global Music Report last Tuesday night, she again alerted those on the call of the need to solve the problem of the ’value gap’. The term is used to describe the difference between royalty rates paid by some digital services (including YouTube) and rates paid by comparable services (like Spotify).