Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

The music in question would be the music of the artist he's interviewing at the time, the absurdity is that you can interview the creator but not show what they've created.

The absurdity is that someone else then the creator can hold the copyright.

In Germany there is a distinction between the selling rights and the creator rights and a company can never be the creator nor can you sell the creator rights.

If the creator gave up their copyright then it's not absurd, it's law. This is why it's important for budding artists to keep their masters.

Good luck with that if you're a new artist looking at a deal. The label will just say "No" and move on.

Artists need exceptional leverage to negotiate a licensing deal instead of a buy out with a reversion option. Most new artists don't have that.

While HN is stuck on its usual obsession with copyright, the reality is the entire ecosystem is bad.

Labels and distributors have the best of all possible worlds. They used to invest in artist development. Now they don't. Most spend very little on promotion, except for household name headliners who are guaranteed earners. Some demand 360 deals where they get a share of all income - sales, plays, touring, and so on.

They're giant corporations run by MBAs whose existence is entirely parasitic.

Why can't an artist or band just make songs and upload them to the platforms directly? And do live shows. What extra does a label give? As you said, they used to invest in artist development and were indispensable for producing the physical media at scale and distributing it to physical record stores everywhere, including internationally. Today all this is much simpler to manage.

You can. You will not be seen unless a label or some big name promotes you.

Radio? Forget about it. Big concerts next to big agents? Nope.

Thing is, breaking through or even is ever harder.

It's worth nothing that we don't live in the 1980s anymore. Radio play, opening for Nickleback, selling merch - all of this matters much less than having a dedicated Internet following. We have lots of examples of musicians in the modern era eschewing radio play entirely, only for radios to beg for licensing rights to play their music. Or successful artists who started their own label or bought-back the rights to their masters. The times have changed quite significantly.

The other thing people seem to forget is that many of the original labels were talent agencies. The reason they promote anyone at all is to try and recoup the investment of supporting all of them. You don't have to empathize with record labels, but modern artists can absolutely "scale" without someone artificially inflating their popularity.

The law is absurd. It has no right to exist and runs counter to the laws of reality.

I know you aren't the same person as above but the person above wrote

> they used to invest in artist development. Now they don't. Most spend very little on promotion

You seem to be claiming they are providing value.

It they aren't providing any value then artists should not sign up. If the are providing value then it's up to the artist whether or not that value is worth it.

Radio? who listens to radio now-a-days?