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I remember The Register, early attempt at blogging, surprisingly still going - Charlie Hoult
YouTube coughs up record royalties to PRS
AN OUTFIT CALLED the Performing Right Society (PRS) reckons that composers, singer/songwriters and music publishers are going to be getting bumper payouts this year and for a while to come, after a deal between the organisation and the video sharing website, YouTube.
Already in the first three months of 2008, the PRS claims to have doled out an unprecedented £110m to their talented musical muses, which is apparently a good 30 per cent more than they had to shell out last year. This, the organisation believes, is mostly thanks to a licensing deal struck with the online video giant YouTube, which now pays royalties on clips of songs (original or covered) uploaded and watched on the site.
YouTube isn’t the only site now coughing up royalties to the PRS either. The society has been approaching social not working sites too, and already has a deal with Bebo. This is good news for recently popular singers like Duffy, who has actually been a member of the PRS since 2003. thanks to the new deal, she’s finally on the right (Welsh rail) track to success and proper earnings.
Chief executive of the MCPS-PRS Alliance of collecting societies, Steve Porter, told the Guardian that he reckons payouts will continue to increase by about 6-7 per cent in 2008 from £370m in 2007, saying that the remaining online potential for royalty tapping remains significant. They’re also looking to cash in on the mobile phone ringtone market, charging the companies for every time one of their artist’s songs is used.
He doesn’t see his job as restrictive though. Quite the opposite in fact. He reckons that by spreading music licencing to all corners of the Web, and making sites like YouTube pay the PRS royalties (as opposed to the YouTube viewing public), artist will be getting their dues, without making their songs less accessible.
The only thing that’s a bit tricky for the PRS though, is the fact that they now have to figure out just how much they owe their cyber viewed starlets, based on the amounts of views their respective clips get. Not to worry though. Boffins from Cambridge university are already on the case, crunching the various statistics to provide an estimated "analogy" of how much each one is worth. Virtually speaking of course. µ
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Youtube actually pays THEM to stream their freaking ads? in monoaural sound .. 
Real genius management there at google HQ.

The artists still need more money? isn't that bit greedy? I listened to Blade Runner Soundtrack on youtube recently, I love it and I went out to buy one of my own CD. I can't download it off youtube however youtube is great place to listen some music to see if I do like it, far superiors then iTune 30 second preview. At the end of the day, the artists should be thanking Youtube.
Well if you think about how much youtube earns by broadcasting other peoples work, its only right to pay royalties to respected owners of works. At the end of the day youtube earns by placing an advert on the page that you are watching. btw the figure for payment is only a tiny one. Some videos have been viewed over 50m times, so if you get 2p per play then thats a good mill. I think its a bit more complicated then that though..