Music hits that are made available for free by users on YouTube are less in demand on platforms such as Spotify or Apple Music. For the broad mass of lesser-known artists, on the other hand, uploading to YouTube by users can help them gain more attention and thus revenue via more lucrative platforms. This is the conclusion of a team of researchers from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, the Universities of Tübingen and Hamburg, and LMU Munich. Their study was published Friday in the journal Marketing Science.
Songs that belong to lesser-known genres or were released a long time ago are also accessed more frequently on streaming services if they were previously uploaded by users to YouTube for free. ...
