Much of the music press today is trying to pretend that the industry they cover is serious about changing its ways. This blog, of course, sees through their lies on the subject – the difference being I have no hesitation whatsoever in calling it out.
YouTube have announced that two channels on their site relating to convicted sex trafficker Robert Sylvester Kelly have been deleted. However, what they haven’t done is banned his music from the platform entirely. Which completely defeats the point of taking down those two channels in the first place.
The simple truth is that YouTube is a private company. If they don’t want to host R Kelly’s music, they’re under no obligation to. But they’re trying to have their cake and eat it here – all they’re doing by removing two verified channels is their own name from the process. In the meantime, they can continue to pretend that uploads of his music by site users – i.e. unofficial uploads – have nothing to do with them.
Either you’re prepared to host his music or you’re not. There’s no middle ground here – it’s a binary choice. And YouTube’s choice is to insult its viewers intelligence by saying they won’t upload his music in an official capacity – but will allow users to do so, inevitably allowing monetisation of those videos in the process.
They must think the public are morons. Fortunately for them, a fair few journalists who cover the industry are precisely that…
