Following this week's news that YouTube's effective payment rate had plummeted in 2015, Google has published an update to the How Google Fights Piracy Report, as well as a few hefty pay-out figures, which it says have been made to developers, rights-holders and to the music industry in general.
The first of these figures is $2 billion, which it says has been paid out to rights-holders since Content ID was launched. In October 2014, Google announced that over $1bn had been paid out as a result of Content ID.
"YouTube has paid out over $2bn to rights-holders who have monetised their content through Content ID since it first launched. In fact, today well over 90% of all Content ID claims across the platform result in monetisation," said Katie Oyama, senior policy counsel at Google, who posted the update.
Elsewhere in the update to the report, the tech giant says that Google Play has paid out more than $7bn to developers while YouTube has paid out more than $3 billion to the music industry.
"Through YouTube and Google Play, Google is in the business of helping users legitimately discover, purchase, and enjoy music, movies, books, magazines, and apps," it continued. "The best way to battle piracy is with better, more convenient, legitimate alternatives. And Google is all-in when it comes to partnering with the content industry to build and enable those alternatives."
"The music industry chooses to monetise more than 95% of their claims, opting to leave the content up on the platform - half of the music industry's YouTube revenue comes from fan content claimed via Content ID. Thanks to Content ID, YouTube is also the only platform that gives partners an automated way to directly monetise background/incidental use and covers."
According to the update posted by Oyama, Google goes "above and beyond the requirements of the law to lead the industry in finding solutions that work", using Content ID as an example of how it is doing this. "Content ID goes beyond a simple notice-and-takedown system to provide a set of automated tools that empowers rightsholders to automatically claim their content and choose whether to track, block or monetise it on YouTube," said Oyama.
"Content ID is a highly effective solution and today, over 98% of copyright management on YouTube takes place through Content ID, with only 2% being handled through copyright removal notices."
The How Google Fights Piracy report explains the programmes, policies, and technologies the company uses to combat piracy online. "Protecting and fostering creativity online is a priority for Google," said the closing statement of the update. "We remain committed to investing in efforts to address copyright infringement online, collaborating with rightsholders and protecting the interests of our users."
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