31.10.2023 10:42
Research results, scientific publications
Strict regulation of music videos could lead to market concentration
Music hits that are made available to users for free on YouTube are less in demand on platforms such as Spotify or Apple Music. For the masses of lesser-known artists, on the other hand, uploading to YouTube by users can help them gain more attention and thus generate income via more lucrative platforms. This is the conclusion reached by a research team from the Vienna University of Economics and Business, the universities of Tübingen and Hamburg and the LMU Munich. Their study was published on Friday in the journal Marketing Science.
Songs that belong to lesser-known genres or were released a long time ago are also accessed more frequently on streaming services if they have previously been uploaded free of charge to YouTube by users. Since YouTube occupies a key position as the world’s largest music streaming service, these results raise questions for the regulation of the market – this was very controversially discussed when the EU Commission revised the Directive (Article 17) on copyright in the digital single market.
“It is important that politicians carefully weigh the potential impact of stricter regulation of platforms for user-generated content,” said Nils Wlömert, professor at the WU Institute for Retailing & Data Science and lead author of the study. “Such regulation could inadvertently increase market concentration by limiting the reach of unknown artists.”
However, the results of the study also show that lower demand for hit releases on music streaming services such as Spotify has a significant impact on music industry sales. Although they only make up a small part of the content, these hits are responsible for a large proportion of sales. “It is therefore important to find balanced regulation that takes both copyrights and the interests of artists and fans into account,” said Professor Dominik Papies from the Chair of Marketing at the University of Tübingen.
Private individuals can upload and share music videos on user-generated content platforms such as YouTube or TikTok at very low cost. Since the platforms do not have to be liable for this content, experts speak of the “safe harbor” principle. Authors receive small financial compensation from the platforms. Because of the low remuneration, among other things, there are always discussions about stricter regulation of these safe harbors, as is currently the case through a legislative initiative in the US Congress.
The study was able to be carried out thanks to a unique circumstance that resembles a controlled experiment – a rarity in the social sciences: for years, YouTube in Germany had prevented the playout of videos uploaded by users. The reason was a legal dispute with the German collecting society GEMA. But in October 2016, an agreement was reached – overnight, hundreds of thousands of titles uploaded by users were available on YouTube. The researchers were now able to evaluate a data set of 600,000 songs: following the agreement with GEMA, more than 350,000 titles were actually available on YouTube over the six-month period of the study – but the rest were not yet. In this way, the researchers were able to determine whether the sudden presence of some of the songs on YouTube changed the income of their authors elsewhere.
Scientific contact person:
Prof. Dr. Dominik Papies
University of Tübingen
Tel. +49 7071/29-78202
[email protected]
Prof. Dr. Nils Wlömert
Institute for Retailing and Data Science
Vienna University of Economics and Business
[email protected]
Originalpublikation:
Wlömert N, Papies D, Clement M, Spann M 2023. The Interplay of User-Generated Content, Content Industry Revenues, and Platform Regulation: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from YouTube. Marketing Science,
2023-10-31 16:39:45
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