PRS For Music calls for fair play

The absolute utter ignorange of these "artists" is staggering, and the fact that they are seemingly intent on scuppering a hugely significant indirect source of income by wailing about "not getting paid" shows how greedy, self righteous, and out of touch they've become. Youtube is a massive source of publicity for these artists, if anything THEY should be paying Google. Pete Waterman's absurd comment about only recieving 11 from Google despite Rick Astley's song getting over 100,000,000 views is ridiculous. What about the MASSIVE increase in sales Rick Astley recieved as a direct-result of the Rick-Rollin' phenomenon? What about the incredible exposure? This website does nothing to help their cause, and has had the opposite effect on me. At least now I have a list of artists and song writers to boycott. Pathetic.

As soon as an artist starts complaining about money, they're not an artist in my book. Go get a real job like the rest of us.

I think artists and composers should get paid for what they create, the same as every day people should get paid for going to work. So for the comment above I think your wrong.

Dear Ashley, Artists / writers / producers etc etc have carried on doing what they do best since forever and until recently were mostly paid for their talent and hard work. Google needs content and Myspace would not exist without music, what do you buy an iPod for.. to listen to music..exactly no use without music or videos....so forget your nonsense and pay....all very well having a flora tub but useless for your toast or bread without the actual flora in it...both parties need to work together and both parties need to be paid.

No one seems to comment on the fact the small print in the joint on-line licence would require google to pay up to 73 time the amount the BBC pay per track/per listener- this is google objection, they have never said they don't want to pay a "FAIR" amount

Tell you what Ashley, why don't you come round to my house, clean it up, do my shopping and generally work for me and then I won't pay you. Why not? That's what you seem to want for musicians and writers; and as for Anon (a nonentity?) - your idea of an artist seems to be some poor individual starving and begging on the street. People make a living from making music so it is a job, now get back to work those toilets won't clean themselves.

Well it's all now resolved so what is there to complain about? PRS complained they wanted more money to allow Google to play the tracks on you tube. Google said no and removed the content. Problem resolved - No contract exists. If I get a quote for a service and don't like it I don't have to have the service now do I? I can just say no thanks.. Google has just said "no thanks" to their your quote. ... or perhaps people should be forced to accept services for which they have asked for quotes? Since Google is no longer showing content for less than it is allegedly worth (as it has been withdrawn) no one can be being ripped of now can they? They have got what you wanted. So what is there now to complain about? Personally I will think they will miss the free advertising and showcasing of talent, but that's a seperate issue.

Creating music is a job just like any other job and an artist/ songwriter deserves to be paid fairly just like anyone else doing a normal job. I agree with Sir Harry Cowell. Google etc require content and if they use artist songs for their content they should pay what is fair or not use the content.

So us artists should let people download us free, then share our copyright free with their i-pod/mp3 players and not get free advertising by a medium that will eventually take over all sales and distribution of our free music?? No thanks it's a pitance of a pay as it is.

Hi all, We are currently setting up a website, which is in the testing stages, for unsigned artists to showcase there work and get rewarded for there efforts! It's free for artists to sign up and upload your music, fans will buy credits to download songs, of which you get 2/3 of the cost of the downloads! As the site grows we will also be able to offer incentives to high achieving bands. We envisage that its popularity will be driven by artists and their fans, which is our goal. We are currently working to getting some large scale coverage for the site and are excited for the initial artists who sign up to http://beta.openmuzik.com to help drive the site forward by providing feedback and suggesting what they would like to see on the site. For example we already have plans to have gig guides and the ability for artists to sell tickets and merchandise, at what will probably be 0% commission meaning you get full proceeds! Also, unlike some other sites, anything you upload remains 100% your copyright, as long as the material is your own or you have express written permission from the original artist that you may own copyright on that recording. We are a (UK)Lancashire based company so having local artists is ideal to help us kick off the promotion and therefore help you get the money coming in! All the details are available at http://beta.openmuzik.com but if there is any info missing (as I have said, we are still testing and hope you will appreciate this), please don't hesitate to contact me. We hope to hear from you soon and would greatly appreciate your membership and feedback of Openmuzik! Many thanks! Simon + the team!