I believe the industry is in trouble because the people running it have a good grasp of the entertainment industry but have no idea on how to relate directly with consumers.

Youtube is a platform for consumers. Even if the music industry grabbed all of its demands it won't lead to an big increase in revenue because if you put pressure on consumers they will find a better product. I think they would have learned this lesson with Napster. It's an inevitable game of whack-a-mole and you won't win.

This article is talking about YouTube as if it's one company, when It's billions of users. The heart of the issue is the way consumers pay royalties. The average person on youtube has no idea about how much to pay, where to pay. It's not an easy to use system. And when a system is confusing or not easy to understand the majority of people will ignore the rules. Youtube revolutionized it by using Content ID to allow these companies to grab a portion of the profits, but instead of praising them they demonize them.

Content ID is a flawed system and one of the reasons content providers complain to YouTube. Many content providers have takedown notices on legitimate uses of copyrighted works that would fall under fair use. So to imply the numbers are skewed to the consumer side would be dubious at best.

It would be nice for this industry to take a pro-active approach and propose a system to allow a user to click for any song they wanted to use on any video they uploaded. A flat fee or pay per play system with easy to use rates that tied into Content ID to take the pressure off of third party takedown notice providers. This would produce revenue and reduce cost. I understand this wouldn't be popular with artist and writers, but when you have a product out for consumption I don't believe you should have a say in what and when it's used.