YouTube is crediting music creators in more than 500 million videos
YouTube’s charm offensive with the music community cranks up a gear with the streaming giant’s announcement overnight it will recognise the creators of the music on its platform.
Alphabet’s video-streaming titan has rolled out “Music in this video,” a feature that allows you to scrutinise details on artists and songwriters, and their respective labels and publishers. More than 500 million videos that contain music are covered, whether it’s a DJ set, a gaming film or a wedding dance. Anything with recorded music.
Why YouTube has waited so long to present this music discovery feature is anyone’s guess (Shazam anyone), but here it is. The tech giant announced the development Wednesday and didn’t waste any more time by immediately releasing the new tool, which provides credits and click-through info on music videos and fan-uploaded clips.
A “Show more” area below each video is where all the magic begins
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In a statement, YouTube says its new feature “strives to provide greater recognition and exposure to the people who contribute to the creative process. It also provides more opportunities for artists and songwriters to reach YouTube’s diverse audience, whether those viewers come to the platform for music videos, science experiments or beauty vlogs.”
And for users, “when a song catches your ear in a video, you can now learn more and dive in deeper by following a link to the official video when available to discover even more about the creators of the song you’re digging.”
The new feature will also include a link to official artist channels where available, and official music videos. YouTube says its new feature is made possible by its digital fingerprinting Content ID system, which logs copyright owners’ information in a database to identify and manage content on the platform.
Since launch, YouTube has had a frosty relationship with the music industry, which regularly calls out the streamer’s “value gap,” shorthand for those paltry royalties it distributes to music makers.
During the presentation last month of the Global Music Report, the record biz took a swipe at YouTube and other on-demand platforms which claim “they are not legally responsible for the music they distribute on their site.”
With its “Music in this video,” YouTube is hinting that both sides can help each other out.
YouTube is, as previously reported, testing its long-awaited new music streaming platform, which is codenamed Remix and should have content in place from the three music majors, Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music, and various indies.
YouTube’s Global Head Of Music Lyor Cohen‘s was widely expected to present the new service at the Music Biz summit Wednesday in Nashville, though he ultimately cancelled. YouTube, however, unveiled its news right on time.
Speaking at the Music Matters summit last year in Singapore, Cohen said his company was on the same page. “That’s my mission here at the company — to help break the artists for the labels. To increase the advertising CPMs for their content and to build a subscription business that shows the industry that our funnel converts.”
In a presentation at SXSW in March, Cohen said the company would hit heavy music listeners with more ads in the hopes of annoying them into converting to paid subscribers of Remix.
This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.