The RIAA's Cary Sherman has issued a response to YouTube Music chief and erstwhile party clown Lyor Cohen's recently blogged remarks about YT's payments (which he claims are bigger than Spotify's from its free tier). "Let's be real about what we know," goes the article, titled Five Stubborn Truths About YouTube and the Value Gap. One of these is that the safe-harbor provision is not a "distraction" (as Lyor claims) but a means to keep artist payments low, and a threat to "music's fragile recovery." Furthermore:

"It’s no mere 'distraction' when YouTube uses the safe harbor to skew negotiations with music creators in its favor; to offer a below-market rate and say 'take it or leave it,' knowing that by 'leaving it' music creators will have to spend countless hours and resources sending takedown notices when they find unauthorized copy after copy of their music on YouTube, only to find them pop right back up again."
Sherman's piece also deflates the implication that Google is just starting in the subscription biz, noting that Google Play was launched a full seven years ago, and that it has attracted few users in the ensuing years while much smaller companies cultivated large and active subscriber bases.

YT's claim to transparency is also targeted, with the RIAA asserting that the video behemoth under-reports streams and constantly disputes rights holders' claims about numbers.

What's more, the Association says, YT pays "far less" to creators than all other ad-supported services "and nowhere near the $3 per thousand streams in the U.S. that Lyor claims" (more like half that).

Sherman notes that 82% of all YouTube users are there for music, adding: "So the facts beg the questions: Why is YouTube paying so little? Is this how a true partner values music? We don’t think so."

You can check out the whole thing here.