YouTube is entering the battle for music streaming exclusives

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MBW told you on Friday that Youtube . com is investing tens of millions of dollars
in a new project designed to boost artists' careers.
We speculated that the most obvious route for such the venture would be a few kind of digital asset creation - especially as Apple Music has opened its chequebook in recent months to finance blockbuster videos/productions for the likes of Drake, The 1975 plus Coldplay.
Now we have the better idea exactly where Google's money is going.
Initially, YouTube is beginning small: creating a play to create exclusive video from emerging artists via a good existing training initiative known as Foundry.
According to Bloomberg
, recent Foundry workshops possess taken place with most up-to-date music talent in UNA and London - with videos of the live classes set to show on Youtube . com this week.
Another Foundry music session is because of in New York later on this month with five artists including hip-hop act BJ The Chicago Child and R&B act Gemaine.
But this really is just a taster of YouTube's ambition.
Apparently, the online giant has mapped out speaks with senior music company figures over the arriving weeks to discuss a 'deeper collaboration'.
What could that mean?
Come on. We're sure you can hazard a guess.
Bloomberg suggests that, in these meetings, YouTube will 'outline ways in order to better promote artists and bring more exclusive videos to the service'.
Within return for a commitment to YouTube's cause, state its sources, artists will be offered benefits which includes https://t.co/pKFAdkuJrN the potential opportunity to front Web TV collection on the platform.
Within addition, YouTube will most likely offer its video manufacturing and post-production resources (aka 'YouTube Spaces') for musicians to shoot videos.
As we ruminated on Friday, this could lead to Youtube . com opening up its Authentic channels to music skill. Existing YouTube Original displays combine hi-spec, TV-style manufacturing values with popular 'amateur' broadcasting personalities such asPewDiePie and Lilly Singh.
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The large question now: which kind of senior music biz figures is YouTube targeting for these meetings, precisely?
If it's the major labels, then a new era of peace and harmony between two oft-warring factions might be upon all of us; YouTube making available its gigantic resources would leave some rocket fuel below the promotional firepower of the global record business.
Yet YouTube's general songs philosophy, as shown simply by its $8m BandPage buy earlier this year,
is likely to be a little more 'direct-to-fan' than that will.
A more likely scenario: YouTube will target the managers of top artists, offering to pay everything they need to generate their own YouTube-exclusive video clips - perhaps even their very own YouTube-exclusive shows - complete with a tasty marketing/promotion commitment.
That kind of strategy would certainly not only help Youtube . com neuter the growing special video threat from Apple Music, TIDAL, Spotify and others, but could also become helpful ammunition amidst the current haggling with major music rights-holders.
YouTube is currently locked in discussions with Universal Music Group over a new long-term license deal after the prior one expired without renewal.

YT's ongoing deals along with the other two major labels, Sony and Warner, are believed to run out in the coming months.
At the same time, the majors are tossing everything at challenging YouTube's safe harbor protections within the US and Europe - protections which essentially mean the platform can't be held legally responsible regarding copyright infringement taking location on its service.
From the end of last month, a string of top music managers added their signatures to the petition asking the ALL OF US Copyright Office to take apart safe harbor laws peddled by the Digital Centuries Copyright Act (DMCA) in the States.
You have to wonder if certain artist supervisors could be swayed to side with YouTube if their artists were provided paid-for music videos and special treatment on the particular world's biggest streaming media platform.
YouTube, meanwhile, offers other problems that simply getting cozy with musicians ain't gonna solve.
Upon Friday, Andrus Ansip, VP for the Digital Single Market at the Western Commission, delivered some stinging news for Google : publicly siding with the record industry over the amount of money YouTube pays to artists plus labels.
According to the FT
, Ansip estimated that will YouTube now contributes about ?600m a year to music rights-holders, despite its billion-plus monthly audience, while Spotify alone delivers ?1. 6bn.
"This is not just about rights owners and creators plus their remuneration - it is also about a level playing field among different service providers, " said Ansip.
"Platforms based on subscriptions are remunerating those authors; other service providers [are] not. How can these people compete? "
Right right now, they're just words : but they could show hugely significant over time: Ansip is the individual managing the modern reconstruction of EU digital copyright laws and regulations.
Are big technology companies about to get their wings clipped in Europe more than the so-called 'value gap'?
Is 'safe harbor' about to take a beating within Brussels?
Stay tuned.