wonder what the incentive is in doing this
are you going to view trinidad james next single differently if it has 1.5 million views as opposed to 10K
edit: they might be doing it for search optimization purposes


http://www.dailydot.com/news/youtube-universal-sony-fake-views-black-hat/

Google slashed the cumulative view counts on YouTube channels belonging to Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, and RCA Records by more than 2 billion views Tuesday, a drastic winter cleanup that may be aimed at shutting down black hat view count-building techniques employed by a community of rogue view count manipulators on the video-sharing site.

Universal's channel is the one that took the biggest hit. According to figures compiled by the YouTube statistics analysts at SocialBlade, the record company's YouTube channel lost more than 1 billion views from its preexisting tally of 7 billion views Tuesday.



Photo via SocialBlade

Sony/BMG was the second largest sufferer, dropping more than 850 million views in one day, bringing its total number of views to a mere 2.3 million. RCA, which got off scot free by comparison, dipped 159 million views. Its tally now sits more modestly at 120 million views.

In addition, each label's YouTube archives are now surprisingly thin. UMG, which had long held a heavy hand in YouTube operations, now only boasts five videos on its YouTube channel, none of which are actual songs�and none of which last more than 1:23.

Sony's page, by comparison, is currently empty. The company did not respond to the Daily Dot's request for comment.

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Other notable channels affected include the ones belonging to Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, Beyonc�, and Avril Lavigne, among others. More than 500 prominent YouTube channels have been stripped of preexisting YouTube views in the past 30 days, something that causes concern when you consider that YouTube views counts, unlike subscriber statistics, are cumulative and cannot organically drop at any point throughout their existence.

Google's takedown of these major music channels came on the same day that hundreds of YouTubers took to Google forums and their own YouTube channels to inform their peers that they'd been subject to a series of video takedowns for violations of YouTube's Terms of Service (TOS). Some speculated that the widespread video takedowns were caused by a technical error, but YouTube confirmed that the users violated TOS item 4, Section H, which bans automated methods of inflating view counts.

"This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our viewcount policy," wrote a Google representative on the forums.

The apparent crackdown on fake views became a major talking point Wednesday on Black Hat World, a forum where users trade tips about unethical search engine optimization tactics.

The thread's first post alluded to a friend of the poster who "sells likes" and was recently told by four different customers that their videos "got deleted due to TOS violation."

"Now I also got a message from a customer who ordered views from me that his video was removed," the individual wrote, sparking a six page conversation that continues on to this moment�and mentions Universal Music Group throughout.

"I spoke with some people on Skype and 2-3 more have the same problems with videos being removed for fake views," the original poster added in a later post. "Likes are from YLH (YouLikeHits) and AddMeFast and views from ViralSocial in my case."

Later in the thread, the conversation turned towards an individual known in some online circles as Tapangoldy, a 16-year-old seller of YouTube views who is prominent on the cheap favors website Fiverr and claimed last month to have already raised $60,000 through the site. Recently, he closed up shop for a few days "to fix all issue thanks.

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videos.

Therefore, the labels can say to the advertisers: "this artist/song/vid is worth putting an ad on the clip".

Labels always do stuff like this. Labels supposedly had people/interns calling up the video jukebox thing in the 90's over and over all day, and when soundscan was new, they supposedly had some stores scanning CD's over and over then canceling the order.

That's the music industry for ya.

mainly because it hurts their value.

but i guess it distances them from turning a blind eye and fostering this type of thing for so many years.

i mean anyone with a half a sense of deductive reasoning and a simple understanding of how media transfers around the internet has known for years that people were inflating views on videos to "enhance" the perceived reach the media had.
youtube was actually in on it in it's infancy because it made the site look more profitable and important.
which again is why i'm surprised at them enforcing something like this if it's true, but maybe the legitimate numbers have finally become so impressive on their own they don't need view bolstering through bots and corporations buying the services of other companies which use them.
the real measurement of legitimacy has always been ratings,comments:views and then to take it further instances of discussion by seemingly real people in different parts of the internet with no connection (ie LEGITIMATE saturation).

there's been a lot of stuff in the last few years that people swore was "buzzing" online that really had neither of those measurements.

which again just goes to show how easy the social aspect of internet has become to manipulate and control by corporations.

my whole thing is the internet is such an overstated means of publicity nowadays. there's such an increased amount of importance placed on it when it's really not as powerful as advertised.
the reason it's advertised as being so almighty is because corporations LIKE google can then beat corporations like the universal music group over the head for dollars.
the same way corporations like apple can sell consumers on "innovations" like a tablet (which has existed for 10+ years).
it reminds me in ways of AOL in the dot-com bubble.
but as far as google, i mean how much "content" from the umg do you think drives legitimate viewership of videos on youtube which google and co. profit from immensely?
a huge part of that 600+ dollar GOOG share is youtube...
and what % of daily viewership on youtube is content belonging to record labels that they willingly surrender?

it's all just a huge confidence scam.
the social-media bubble.
social-media giants & internet-based music conglomerates alike fudging their numbers and lying about the importance of their services to get these clueless corporations to surrender their content for free and only giving them a sliver of the pie on profits made from their material.
corps like google boost their share prices and boost their quarterly earnings on the advertising dollars they reap this way and record sales of music continue to dwindle down to nothing, which hurts the acts, retail companies, and a whole whack of people's jobs in retail.

i tried to introduce these concepts for discussion in the lesson in 2010/2011, but nobody here can discuss these things intelligently without feeling the need to speak derisive all while ignoring the concept in general.
god forbid someone go against the grain and speak ill of a corporation in the 10's, i guess.

imo, there's too many former musicians in the music biz and not enough tech-savvy business men nowadays.
i think that's a big part of the music industries problem.
i always use this example but you'd never see adobe give their products away for free (trials - sure but a trial of a song would equal a 30 second sample) under the guise of it making them money somehow in the long run.

media like music always will end up on the internet if there's a genuine fanfare and demand.
the music industry lost when they got con'd into coming to the internet and putting everything on the table rather than letting the internet come to them like it always eventually would've.

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�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

One of the things youtube peddles is being a legit arbiter of taste along with advertising.

If im paying for prime advertising real estate and you put me next to a flopping Rihanna single...but charge me a shitload because it's got a million views (when it's in reality only 100k...the rest were bots), we've got a fucking problem.

Youtube doesn't are about the music biz, it cares about keeping those views legit so they can charge top dollar for them. Im surprised they don't sue (and if they keep getting caught at it, I won't be surprised that they will)

>One of the things youtube peddles is being a legit arbiter of
>taste along with advertising.
>
>If im paying for prime advertising real estate and you put me
>next to a flopping Rihanna single...but charge me a shitload
>because it's got a million views (when it's in reality only
>100k...the rest were bots), we've got a fucking problem.
>
>Youtube doesn't are about the music biz, it cares about
>keeping those views legit so they can charge top dollar for
>them. Im surprised they don't sue (and if they keep getting
>caught at it, I won't be surprised that they will)


ehh... this has been going on for over 5 years and youtube is a willing participant in their "sponsored videos", which nearly all have inflated view counts that make the website's reach more dynamic than it actually is (this was especially true in the first few years).

i agree in principle with what you are arguing, especially from a 3rd party advertisers POV. it's criminal.
but they know what they're doing.
i guess now they just want to try and distance themselves.

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�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

You wrote an impressive amount of text for no reason.

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Love,
Nopayne

This^^^^^^^^^^^^^

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

if you dont agree break down why

instead of just saying hes crazy

i mean on a uk site i go on we been openly laughing at how the youtube views were being deets by uk street rappers (i.e credit card frauding to buy views) for years literally

and now they do something about it, why ?

_______________________________________
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it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer

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He is saying some shit that everyone already knows...And that's par for the course for dude...

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

>and now they do something about it, why ?

exactly.
i would venture that the unique numbers have grown so much in the last 5 years that maybe google can afford to distance themselves and take a stand "discouraging" this sort of thing to make themselves look good, or less evil .

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

.

<----

Soundcloud.com/aquil84

(HIP HOP)
http://aquil.bandcamp.com

>wonder what the incentive is in doing this
>are you going to view trinidad james next single differently
>if it has 1.5 million views as opposed to 10K
>edit: they might be doing it for search optimization purposes


Come on dog...U know the answer to that....lol...YouTube numbers have become the new Billboard....The problem is, it's more hype and promotion than anything else...

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

It really seems like some of these big sites are an inflated bubble, getting by on old content. They trying to defer fraud by lowering the record labels view-scam, but it has been years since Google bought this site, why don't they have shows of their own yet? Very strange to me.

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http://adevotedappraisal.tumblr.com - Essays, reviews, short stories and free writes on music, film and life around us.

They also own Next New Networks if I remember correctly.

---
Love,
Nopayne

like when I see a Dom Kennedy video has 600,000 or a million views, that makes me curious how the fuck that's possible. Or when every Chief Keef single is in the 5 millions...I'm kinda curious.


~~~~~~~~~
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Like most of the time you can kind of gauge buzz...and tell if it's off/fake/bought..

Wherever a Trinidad James or Lil B, Pre-Warner A$AP..ect gets crazy views, you could tell its kind of warranted. You've seen their names enough around the net/or radio/or club/or street to understand how they got those views.

But when you see a dude getting crazy views and you aint NEVER seen or heard any recollection of that movement..and they are not the hottest thing in their city like Chief Keef was..then you know something is up..

Cats been buyin views since the days of myspace but it seems like it catches up in the end...

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If I'm going to tubeyou it's to see a video I already had in mind to see, especially if it's a music video by a certain artist; I've never went to tubeyou like I would the tv searching for something good to watch.

Yeah I sometimes don't have a particular song/video I want to see but I do know what artist or person's account I will be checking for beforehand, and if tubeyou recommends a video then that's after the fact not before; and most of the time it's a video I've already seen or don't want to see.

https://tinyurl.com/y4ba6hog

---------
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& your fool ass is cruising around in a time machine
trying to collect props for a couple of sociopathic degenerates" - s.blak

a lot of casual fans see videos with alot of views and want in on the next big song. they'll share it and views will increase. snowball effect.

it's also used for PR purposes. If an artist has 5 millie views, its much easier for a publicist to get an artist to perform on a morning news show. Or...to get an artist a feature with a thirsty publication.

it's deeper than just rankings.

...that have tens of millions of views. How? There are dozens of lyric videos for "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", all unofficial. Numbers have to be plumped up in a lot of cases.

The actual video? Over 103 million views
Official VEVO Lyric video? 25 million views
First unofficial lyric video I saw when I searched? Just under 5 million. (and it comes up before the first two when I type the song title and "official lyrics" afterwards)

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And when I see 1 million views but barely any comments that tells me that its FAKE.