Pay to Play

A few weeks back, Warner Music Group made the mind-boggling decision to remove the music of every artist in its considerable stable from YouTube. Right off the bat, this seemed like a shockingly short-sighted idea, and I said as much:

"YouTube -- not to mention anyone who pulls a video from there and places it on his or her own website -- isn't receiving a service so much as providing one: Each time I post a music video here, I'm publicizing that band and hopefully encouraging people to go out and buy its music. For this, I receive no compensation from the record company; I do it out of a true passion for the music and the artist. What Warner Bros. and its artists have with YouTube is a genuinely symbiotic relationship; each side is benefiting equally.

But of course, Warner and most of the other dinosaur-like behemoths in the recording industry -- including the RIAA -- don't see it that way. They can't. They still think in terms of protecting their fiefdoms at all costs by stringently dictating how the music of their artists is distributed. They believe that any use of their music constitutes them doing somebody a favor when, in reality, it's often exactly the opposite.

In the end, you the music lover are going to suffer a hell of a lot less than the bands you won't be able to see and hear."

You had to kind of figure going into it that the eventual result of this draconian tactic would be that you wouldn't be able to find music from Warner artists anywhere on the internet for free.

And that's exactly what's happened.

Don't believe me? Try looking for the new video from one of Warner's most popular and profitable bands: My Chemical Romance. Director Zack Synder personally helmed the video for the band's damn cool cover of Dylan's Desolation Row, from the Watchmen soundtrack. But if you want to see the entire clip, not just a 30 second teaser for it, you have to pay for it on iTunes. This marks a sea change in the way music videos are perceived by the record companies producing them: With the ability to download and watch clips over and over again on portable platforms like the iPod, what were once promotional items manufactured to help sell albums are now actual products unto themselves. The problem of course is that while Warner will almost certainly make a few extra dollars in the short term by charging fans to see the entire Desolation Row video, it loses the ability to flood the market with free hype for the band's single, the full album, and the band itself. Add to that, in ironic "Who Watches the Watchmen" fashion, the question of exactly who at Warner is deciding which bands get the teaser treatment and which are deemed too under the radar to hold over the head of the music-buying public like a carrot on a stick, and you've got a slippery slope that will almost surely send a few unfortunate artists skidding downhill into oblivion.

And that will cost Warner a hell of a lot of money in the long run -- as well as deprive quite a few good acts from finding the audience they deserve.