This from Mitch Murray:

Despite all the excitement and gold-rush hysteria inspired by the Internet over recent years, there is still almost no money in it at all for creators of music.
Internet Piracy is bad enough, but when even legitimate websites like YouTube, claim that the only way they can make their business model work is for composers and songwriters to accept tiny micropayments for the use of their music, something weird is going on.

The precipitous action taken by YouTube in the middle of negotiations with PRS For Music could only be for dramatic effect and is a disservice to their own subscribers.
Do they really think it's fair that several million hits will earn a songwriter barely enough to finance a visit to Starbuck's? Is that the real difference between legal and illegal online music?

Mitch Murray, songwriter - 25 March 2009