Comment on Frontiers: The Interplay of User-Generated Content, Content Industry Revenues, and Platform Regulation: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from YouTube

This useful article about the effects of music on YouTube on consumption of the same music elsewhere should be understood for what it is: An empirical investigation of YouTube's effects. It allows no conclusions about safe harbors both because YouTube was not relying on the safe harbor regime either before or after the relevant policy change and because, as YouTube's lack of reliance shows, the safe harbor regime primarily protects thousands of websites that don't behave like YouTube. Under the European Union's new Article 17, sites like YouTube are now required to negotiate with copyright owners to license works uploaded by users who do not own the copyright thereto. YouTube, however, was already doing this. The article [Wlo center dot mert N, Papies D, Clement M, Spann M (2023) Frontiers: The interplay of user-generated content, content industry revenues, and platform regulation: Quasi-experimental evidence from YouTube. Marketing Sci., ePub ahead of print October 27, https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2022.0080] has implications for what music companies should ask for in these negotiations. However, it would be a mistake to generalize from YouTube to the Internet as a whole.

Automated summary

This article examines the impact of music on YouTube and its consumption on other platforms. It emphasizes that the conclusions should not be generalized to the entire internet and that the safe harbor regime mainly protects websites that are different from YouTube. The article provides insights for music companies in their negotiations with copyright owners.