Lucas Shaw, writing at Billboard:

In recent months, YouTube has given a handful of musicians a couple hundred thousand dollars to produce videos and promote their work on billboards, part of a larger campaign to improve the site’s relationship with the music industry.

Yet such support comes with a catch, with some musicians required to promise the won’t say negative things about YouTube, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private business transactions. Non-disparagement agreements are common in business, but YouTube’s biggest direct competitors in music don’t require them, the people said.

The Verge:

YouTube has released a statement in response to accusations that it is discriminating against its LGBTQ users by hiding certain videos in its Restricted Mode. The company issued the statement on Sunday night, after several popular LGBTQ vloggers and video creators, discovered that videos on topics such as dating, attraction, and inspiration had been hidden by default in the mode. Many led criticism against the company using the #YouTubeIsOverParty hashtag on Twitter.

Tegan and Sara have been very vocal about this issue on Twitter.

YouTube has announced their new live TV offering dubbed “YouTube TV”:

Well, we’ve got some good news! We’re bringing the best of the YouTube experience to live TV. To do this, we’ve worked closely with our network and affiliate partners to evolve TV for the way we watch today.

And:

A YouTube TV membership is only $35 a month and there are no commitments—you can cancel anytime.

Interesting.

Joseph Bernstein, writing for BuzzFeed:

But it’s on YouTube where he really goes to work. Since Nov. 4, four days before the election, Seaman has uploaded 136 videos, more than one a day. Of those, at least 42 are about Pizzagate. The videos, which tend to run about eight to fifteen minutes, typically consist of Seaman, a young, brown-haired man with glasses and a short beard, speaking directly into a camera in front of a white wall. He doesn’t equivocate: Recent videos are titled “Pizzagate Will Dominate 2017, Because It Is Real” and “#PizzaGate New Info 12/6/16: Link To Pagan God of Pedophilia/Rape.”

Seaman has more than 150,000 subscribers. His videos, usually preceded by preroll ads for major brands like Quaker Oats and Uber, have been watched almost 18 million times, which is roughly the number of people who tuned in to last year’s season finale of NCIS, the most popular show on television.

Eriq Gardner, writing at The Hollywood Reporter, on record labels starting to sue some of the YouTube to MP3 ripping websites:

On Monday, the plaintiffs filed a copyright lawsuit in California federal court, stating, “Stream ripping has become a major threat to the music industry, functioning as an unlawful substitute for the purchase of recorded music and the purchase of subscriptions to authorized streaming services.”

With a few simple mouse clicks, the lawsuit reports, infringing copies of sound recordings are made available in MP3 format. The plaintiffs suggest that “tens, or even hundreds, of millions of tracks are illegally copied and distributed by stream ripping services each month.”

Shira Ovide and Leila Abboud, writing for Bloomberg, on the music industry’s love/hate relationship with YouTube:

More than half of Internet users in the U.S. listen to music on YouTube — by far the most popular access point — but YouTube is responsible for only 4 percent of revenue to the industry, according to a music industry trade group. The biggest record labels say Google should pay more, and they want more control over music that is responsible for what Bernstein Research estimated is one-quarter of all YouTube videos watched.

Rob Levine, writing for Billboard, looks at the strange place YouTube occupies in the music industry:

Most Internet companies need to get ­permission from labels in order to use their music — a negotiating dynamic that results in high fees. With services that operate under the DMCA — like YouTube and, until recently, SoundCloud — the dynamic is very different. These services also stream music uploaded by users, and ­copyright holders who don’t want their content online need to file takedown notices — one for each copy of each song. Instead of ­selling the rights to music that a service needs, label ­executives say they’re stuck selling the rights to music that a service essentially already has.

Well, that’s the theory. In practice, it’s more complicated.