royalties

[Michael Rolls]

as I understand it, when a piece of music is played on the radio (I assume this also holds good for TV) the artist holding the copyright (and I believe in some cases the estate of a deceased artist) receives a small payment - which adds up over time.
What set me thinking was whether this applies to YouTube - some items, whether simply of a piece of music, or a clip using music as a background - have been viewed millions of times, so even a royalty payment of 1p a time would mount up.
I have never posted anything on YouTube, so no idea how it is done - but I do wonder if artists are losing out over this?

[Ashy]

Yes copyright does apply to youtube. Copyright expires after a time as far as I know. No idea about royalties though. In some cases youtube removes clips where copyright is infringed.

[Michael Rolls]

out of idle curiosity, I looked at a live clip of the Beatles preforming 'A Hard Day's Night'. It's been viewed 35 MILLION times. If there were royalties on that...

[klondike]

I've heard of something called the Performing Rights Society. They charge anybody that plays music to the public and divvii it up somehow. I recall Noddy Holder saying his Christmas song has kept him for years. If you are really interested it's a good search term.

People make money from adverts on YouTube. If there is copyright stuff on there I assume the copyright holder gets money from them based on number of plays too.

[Michael Rolls]

must be awfully complicated to administer

[GrannyMac]

It certainly must.  I know that royalties are a big earner, but how they are calculated nowadays is anyone's guess!