OTTAWA – As part of Canada’s Copyright Act review, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage announced earlier this year it would study remuneration models for artists and creative industries. Even Bryan Adams made an appearance last month.
On Thursday, the committee heard from Google Canada’s Jason Kee, who serves as the company’s Counsel on Public Policy and Government Relations. As the company has stated many times prior all around the world, its stance on remuneration is based on a partnership model. Its YouTube division has, of course, created a large number of content-creating young millionaires this way.
“In this model, creators, such as publishers, artists, producers or app developers create and supply the content while we provide distribution and monetization, including technical infrastructure, sales teams, transactions and payment systems and business support,” he said.
Kee said revenue is shared between the creator and Google, emphasizing the majority of the revenue is directed to the artist “every single time.” He noted that under the company’s partnership model, Google only earns revenue when its partners earn revenue, and as such, it’s in everyone’s best interests to ensure creators are successful.
Highlighting the company’s various revenue-generating platforms, including the Google Play Store, which offers a combination of apps, television shows and movies, Google Play Music, as well as the company’s AdWords platform, Kee noted that each service is fully licensed and remits royalties to rights’ holders in accordance with licensing agreements.
In discussing what is arguably the company’s biggest offering, YouTube, Kee said the service welcomes more than 1.9 billion monthly logged in users watching more than a billion hours of video each day.
With more than 400 hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute, Kee billed the service as “one of the largest living collections of human culture ever assembled.”
“Canada has a very large and vibrant YouTube community that produces high quality and engaging content that is enjoyed in high numbers, both domestically and globally,” Kee said.
Kee also noted 90% of the watch time for Canadian creators comes from outside of Canada, higher than any other country on the platform.
“Canadian success stories are numerous, and many of these creators have grown sufficiently large and sophisticated that they employ teams of business managers, researchers, camera operators, editors and others." – Jason Kee, Google
In the past year, Canadian channels have seen their watch time grow by 45%, according to Kee, who added that YouTube channels making six figures or more have seen a 24% increase over last year.
“Canadian success stories are numerous, and many of these creators have grown sufficiently large and sophisticated that they employ teams of business managers, researchers, camera operators, editors and others, effectively becoming small production studios. Canada also has a large community of up-and-coming creators, including a range of Quebec creators who produce French-language content that performs very well in Quebec and [other] French language markets.”
Kee said Canadian broadcasters and producers are increasingly partnering with YouTube and are leveraging the platform to reach international audiences, and singled out YouTube’s partnership with Encore+, which provides viewers with programming no longer offered on television.
“We invest billions of dollars in the [YouTube] platform and underlying infrastructure, giving everyone the instant ability to stream their content to 91 countries in the world at no cost to them,” Kee said.
Highlighting the company’s subscription model, YouTube Premium, as a benefit to creators due to being paid a pro-rated share of the subscription revenue, Kee touted the service as being potentially more lucrative than advertising. “Subscriptions allow creators to address subject matter that advertisers may not find appropriate. As we roll YouTube Premium out to more markets and attract more subscribers, we expect subscription revenue to make up a greater portion of creators’ overall revenue mix.”
Kee added the company is building additional revenue tools into YouTube. These include channel memberships, where fans will pay a monthly fee in return for unique perks; super chat, which will give users the ability to highlight their messages in live stream chats; merchandising features which will link visitors to channel-related e-commerce sites; and Famebit, a marketplace Google says connects brands with creators.
Turning towards specifics that YouTube is pursuing to support Canadian creators, Kee mentioned both the YouTube Canada Spotlight Channel, as well as the 2016 opening of the YouTube Creator Space in Toronto. Since its opening, Kee said the space has welcomed more than 5,000 creators.
“We’re also committed to protecting rights holder content on the platform, and go well above and beyond the requirements of the law,” Kee said, noting the company’s content ID system is highly successful in identifying potential infringements. “Over 98% of all copyright management on YouTube occurs through [the company’s] Content ID system.”
