Excellent story in The Guardian today showing that, in fact, the billions of views removed from the You Tube counts were because they had all been on VEVO, no longer allowed as direct You Tube views.

www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/dec/2...ws-disappear-migrate

The main problem with Youtube isn't views being 'inflated' but rather views being 'deflated'. For example with my own videos they suggest that only a handful of people view them, which indicates a major problem with how they collate the viewing figures.

And, of course, there's any monies paid to copyright owners and in particular writers and publishers; millions of views get minimal royalties, if any at all.

The point about youtube though is that it basically provides free advertising for artists/songwriters. Lots of times I've seen a track on youtube, liked it and then bought the album its off from amazon. Youtube is the new radio ie a way for artists to broadcast their songs.

Not so JK! Not so at all.
In fact if you read what Youtube said themselves you would understand where all of this is coming from.

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-...-music-industry.html

'This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our viewcount policy,' YouTube announced.

VEVO has been around for many years and Youtube have been serving the videos and doing all the back end support. You would
think that they would know how to reset their data for many years now. Also if you think VEVO themselves are not using
a bit of "PR" (i.e lies damned lies) when counting their views then read this article
www.wesleyverhoeve.com/the-truth-about-v...s-all-roll-our-eyes/

This is not necessarily related but in a push to be the number one video destination VEVO are blatantly lying to everyone about
how they count their views. For the record Youtube is THE default destination for videos and not VEVO. No one goes directly to
VEVO but are often redirected from other sites such as Youtube.

If you Google the headline you will find 99.9% show that this was because of fake views and not some spurious defence about
migration to VEVO. Unfortunately for them, there are a lot more internet savvy people who know this is just hogwash. Stop believing
in lie JK. You know fake views and hyping goes on so stop trying to deny its existence, especially as you invented chart rigging
and hyping (your own words). Artists have even admitted to it being done by
their marketing department.

Hamlet wrote:
The main problem with Youtube isn't views being 'inflated' but rather views being 'deflated'. For example with my own videos they suggest that only a handful of people view them, which indicates a major problem with how they collate the viewing figures.
You hit the nail on the head with this comment for me.

For years Youtube has been the place to discover new talent but I've not been sent or seen anything decent for a long while so personally I think the majors/money have cornered this market too.... Gangnam Style being a good example.

There are always the exceptions so congratulations go to Alex Day for his achievements in this market although I think he broke at just the right time, I fear up-coming indie's are struggling to get a look in.

Good point K but don't despair just yet. The online world is getting more interesting each day. Twitter is now the place to break new talent though YouTube will still serve the backed technology. The good thing about the online world is that there is something for everyone and you can still break your tracks online if you follow certain principles. The trend is back to basics with artists maintaining their own email lists using Youtube to serve the technology. The main issues in doing is is obvious SPAM but with a decent strategy you can make decent inroads. I think Alex Day needs to rethink his strategy as Stupid Stupid sunk without a trace very quickly and that was mainly because the song sucked big time. It was stupid stupid to release that as a Xmas single. Release in January or the summer and get to number one Alex.

Have a look into Twitter as a marketing channel. Retweets are fabulous and Twitter breaks more singles than any other online site. YouTube may be downgrading stats unfairly I have to say as I find it hard to believe that Sony/BMG had only 2.5m legit views so something is wrong there. In any case 2013 will be the year that DIY monetizing takes root. If you're wondering what I mean, well I mean whereby artists own advertising converts to sales therefore paying for their marketing costs. But regardless of all THE MUSIC IS STILL KING.

"For the record Youtube is THE default destination for videos and not VEVO"

Yes. But even if a video from UMG/SonyBMG/EMI is viewed on YouTube it is counted as a VEVO-video.

"YouTube changed its view count. The company recently decided to remove view counts for videos that are no longer live on the channel, or so-called "dead videos." For Universal and Sony, that meant thousands of music videos that over the past three years slowly have migrated to the VEVO channel, which is jointly owned by the two companies. A senior label executive confirmed the migration."

www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/digital...#KQ0srYvHquL8dxIj.99

"The main problem with Youtube isn't views being 'inflated' but rather views being 'deflated'. For example with my own videos they suggest that only a handful of people view them, which indicates a major problem with how they collate the viewing figures."

There is a threshold (300 views?). When this point is reached YouTube stops counting (temporary) and uses some (secret) methods to test if the views a "real". Than the counting continues.

A short but useful introduction to the many problems of YouTube
The YouTube Industry Has A Transparency Problem

DJ I know the labels are saying it is down to the migration but that of course is balony.
Youtube are saying something completely different and let's not forget that VEVO has been around
for a while now so you'd think Youtube would know how to count their videos accurately.

VEVO can claim all the want, punters go to Youtube for videos and by the way VEVO are not the only
other video service using this same process. Blip TV have a similar arrangement with Youtube.

All of this is a moot point because if you want to know how genuine video views are a few clicks on
the net will show you how accurate they are and I can tell you this now, all is NOT as it seem.
Inflation of video views by fair means and foul is rife with the majors as with a lot of other users.
Click fraud, proxies, bots, multiple views, mobile cheats is rife on the net and is threatening online
advertising. Having said that it is a lot more transparent than any other form of advertising and that
includes print and TV ads whose metrics is pure fantasy.

Nothing wrong with hype if it brings attention to your hit - I started it. The problem, for me, came when the tracks hyped, at great expense, were flops, pushed simply because they were priorities for useless labels.

Hype hits - fine. Hype flops and the airplay gets taken over by flops, public loses interest (not hearing or buying real hits), profits slip, TV shows get cancelled and the music industry suffers.