Let's see....
I'm sure you all know about this latest fiasco involving UK-based YouTube.
The industry is dying, record sales are drying up like the Iraqi marshes, so you cut off your nose to spite your face.
Music videos are not something that should be paid for by the public or a vehicle for royalties - they are simply a medium to promote a song, like hearing it on the radio. iTunes exists for selling music videos - you don't try to charge YouTube, which is already running a massive budget deficit - to show videos. Nobody is losing money when a fan or a casual listener watches a clip online - in fact, that is a potential SALE as if the song is liked enough, the watcher will gladly pay 99 cents for the song or two dollars for the video in HI-Q.
And of course this OTHER YouTube fiasco last year with Warner Music Group - FUCK YOU WARNER MUSIC GROUP - pulling ALL their roster's videos off. Including Madonna - and since she is barely played on American radio, she just lost a massive source of publicity. Not to mention '4 Minutes' was one of the highest viewed clips on YouTube, ever.
WMG, you've just lost MILLIONS by squabbling over a few thousand. Now all your artists have lost free publicity, angered the fanbases, and lost MILLIONS by preventing a form of publicity that could translate in a very real way into major sales.
Now how can fans hear the songs by their fave artists or artists they may like - and how can the wonderful creative videos be seen? That includes Madge, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park among others.
Video fiascos aside - let's talk about the mess that is modern Top 40 radio. Sales dwindle, dwindle - but corporate controlled radio tightens its death grip over playlists - spinning the same tired songs by the same tired acts again and again and again -
don't they realize more artists on the radio = more fans of new artists = more sales = millions more dollars in profit?
And the new acts that DO come along - really have no potential to last or generate large scale income - Katy Perry and Lady Gaga are NOT going to be buoying their labels 5 or 10 years down the road.
Corporate radio refuses to expand playlists. Big labels disallow their videos from being seen publicly. MTV is a joke.
The stupidity and greed have cost the labels untold millions more than their money grubbing "revenue stream innovations" EVER could have.