Indie Artists Outraged by YouTube’s New Streaming Service

Last month, a bunch of indie music labels teamed up to form a coalition called Independent Distribution Cooperative, which is edicated to fighting major-label-owned distribution companies and preserving the rights of indie artists to retain ownership of their own tunes.

The five labels involved in the committee -- Beggars Group, Secretly Label Group, Domino, Merge and Saddle Creek -- include bands like Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend and Arctic Monkeys on their rosters.

According to Billboard, the cooperative's next target will most likely be YouTube, the Internet's primary junction for almost all music and non-music videos. A similar organization, the Worldwide Independent Network, has already gone on the attack against the video behemoth, claiming that the company has been nearly forcing indie artists to participate in its streaming music service, which they claim is unfair.

WIN claims that YouTube threatened their artists with blocking their videos if they don't agree to the company's streaming service terms, which offers barely any artist royalties. The launch of YouTube's streaming service was planned for late last year, but it has been delayed as the company continues to tighten its odds and ends.

See that face in the above photo? That's YouTube's way of telling you that you ran into a video that's not available. Get used to it. You may be seeing a lot more if it in the near future.