EMI, VEVO Reset View Count On Artist’s Music Videos, Taking Away Her Hit Song Status
A Hypebot reader and author of a LeToya fan site wrote in to inform us an odd thing that's happened to her YouTube view counts. Several of her music video's view counts have dropped dramatically. Making it seem as though LeToya is just starting out when really she's a former member of Destiny's Child. For example, her video "Not Anymore" went from having a staggering 2.5 million views and dropped down to a meager 106,000. What happened? From the perspective of Mike, the publisher, once EMI (LeToya's label that owns the rights to her first two albums), made a recent deal with VEVO, they deleted a number of her videos off other label pages on YouTube, taking the view counts with them.
In one such instance, the video for "Not Anymore" had been uploaded to several accounts that EMI oversees. First, the video was uploaded to the artist's page. Then, it was uploaded to their label page. Sometimes, they even uploaded the same video twice to the same account. In effect, what this did is it spread out the views of LeToya's videos across multiple channels. Finally, EMI came to the realization that whichever video was uploaded first achieved a higher view count.
"But instead of consolidating all the data together (views, comments and ratings) they decided to remove all the videos from the artist's accounts and only keep the ones from the EMI account," Mike writes. "All the other ones are either private or unlisted." Thus, what's happening now is that "VEVO is only showing the count from the EMI account." Mike sees this as a problem, because on YouTube, views are a very psychological thing. Having millions of views is what gives LeToya's songs a hit status. Taking that status away from several of LeToya's videos is something that Mike deems to be unfair. However, that's not all that worries him.
"I am sure if this happened to LeToya it happened to other artists under that label as well," Mike makes clear. "This is a big inconvenience for all of them because this is like erasing their achievements and taking away credits from them."
In Mike's view, EMI and YouTube/VEVO/Google need to collaborate and resolve this issue. He believes that if you're going to consolidate videos or remove copies from YouTube that labels need to make sure that all the "views, comments, and ratings" are combined together. Thus, granting an artist the star status that they deserve. Below is an overview of how this situation has affected LeToya's view counts. Mike has taken the time to collect as much information as was available to estimate the real view counts that these six videos should have. He did note, however, that it was tough to arrive at a hard number because many of LaToya's videos have since been taken off the site or made private, so he can't view them.
Mike stresses, "So basically we’re missing a huge amount of views." And, imaginably, he would love to see LeToya's video view counts rightfully restored.
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“Not Anymore”
EMI (UPLOAD #1): 106,000
EMI (UPLOAD #2): 182,000
LETOYA ACCOUNT: 2,500,000 (MADE PRIVATE)
OTHERS: 100,000 (TAKEN DOWN NOT COUNTED)
TOTAL: MINIMUM 2,888,000
“She Ain’t Got”
EMI (UPLOAD #1): 1,184,000
EMI (UPLOAD #2): 39,000
LETOYA: ??? (MADE PRIVATE)
OTHERS: ??? (TAKEN DOWN)
TOTAL: MINIMUM 1,223,000
“Regret”
EMI: 146,000
LETOYA: 694,000
LNN: 108,000
OTHERS: 500,000 (TAKEN DOWN NOT COUNTED)
TOTAL: MINIMUM 1,448,000
“Good To Me” (Not on VEVO)
EMI: NOT UPLOADED
LETOYA: 140,000
LNN: 63,000
OTHERS: 400,000 (TAKEN DOWN NOT COUNTED)
TOTAL: MINIMUM 603,000
“Torn”
EMI: 292,000
CAPITOL RECORDS: 756,000
CAPITOL MUSIC: 149,000
LETOYA: ??? (MADE PRIVATE)
OTHERS: ??? (TAKEN DOWN)
TOTAL: MINIMUM 1,197,000
“She Don’t”
EMI: 557,000
CAPITOL RECORDS: 313,000
CAPITOL MUSIC: 256,000
LETOYA: ??? (MADE PRIVATE)
OTHERS: ??? (TAKEN DOWN)
TOTAL: MINIMUM 1,126,000
This just goes to show that things can indeed disappear from the internet without a trace. A similar example to her view counts: Never has it been so easy to delete an album than in the current era of download-only releases. If you have a physical release, there still are remaining copies that are sold cheaply and then re-sold (call this the “long tail” of the old music business model if you like) and have a chance to gain a cult following and eventually see a reprint by one of the mini-labels that are specialising in reissues. That’s not the case with download-only releases who get deleted from the server from which they were originally sold, since the copies that are in circulation are likely not to be re-sold or given away by their original buyers, but it is much more likely that people with spare copies of deleted catalogue on their harddrive that do not want them anymore just move them to trash, not knowing there might be some diehards out there looking for these tracks.
that’s definitely not cool from her label to do that.
…but I’m quite sure her management knew about that. I know EMI are sending out info about Vevo internally.
And come on! 2.6 millioner views for an international “superstar”? 1000s of videoes has that amount of views. I would understand if Lady Gagas 1 billlion views was deleted, but this is nowhere near something that would ever affect LeToya’s future views on Youtube…
True, LeToya is nowhere near Lady Gaga status; but as music connoisseurs, activists, musicians and members of the music community, we should be concerned for less popular artists and the protection of their accolades as well as the interest of our independent musicians.
What would happen if someone like Wiz Khalifa’s (who until recently was indie) underground videos were all made private, moved to Atlantic’s channel or his VEVO or whatever, and he lost his millions of views. Then it basically makes it look like he did all that work promoting online, etc. for NOTHING. Even though he’s selling out tours now, but that’s besides the point. Lol.