When

Google

purchased You-Tube in 2007, Warner suspended their legal action. This was a result of a deal worked out with Google, which saw Warner being paid a percentage of the advertising revenue generated when people view music videos on the You- T ube site. They have now reinstated the legal proceedings, and Google has been forced to remove thousands of music videos from You-Tube. Is this fair? For many people the answer is “yes” . After all, Warner does, in fact, own the music videos, and if they are being distributed for free then Warner cannot gather revenue from the product they own. But wait! Why does Warner need to gather the revenue from these music videos? It is not costing them anything to have these videos on You- T ube. It is not as if someone has stolen thousands of DVDs from Warner . The videos on You-Tube are digital copies. The only company wearing any cost in this situation is You-Tube--hence Google. We could respond to this point by suggesting that although Warner has not had to spend any money on the copying and hosting of these videos, the original artists need to be paid for their work. The argument is similar to all music piracy arguments. The idea is that composers and performers need to be paid for their work, otherwise they will be unable to afford to continue producing music. This is a valid point, but we can respond by stating that the original performers have, in fact, already been paid. They were paid when the music was originally released. Their payment came from the sales of CDs and music videos. Indeed, they probably earned vastly more than they would have if they were simply paid an hourly rate for the production of the music. So why do they need to continue to earn money from it? Does it make sense that Paul McCartney still gets paid every time a radio station plays “Hard Day’s Night”? The song probably only took a couple of hours to write, and it probably took less than a

Who Really Owns Music?