https://www.insider.com/rickroll-music-video-hit-a-billion-views-on-youtube-2021-8 One billion rickrolls and counting as Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' music video hits a billion YouTube views That's one billion rickrolls and counting. The official music video for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" has officially hit one billion views on YouTube. The video for Astley's 1987 song was uploaded to YouTube on October 25, 2009, and broke the record on July 29. As of press time, it has recorded over 1.01 billion views. The song reached legendary status after it was co-opted in a long-enduring internet prank that started in the mid-2000s and involves sending someone a link that turns out to be a video of a denim-clad Astley dancing and lip-syncing to the lyrics: "Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you." The song inspired joy, rage, and inadvertently gave Astley one of his biggest hits ever. It's also one of the only music videos made in the pre-YouTube days to join the platform's billion-view club. In 2019, "Sweet Child o' Mine" by the Guns N' Roses became the first video produced in the 1980s to break the billion-view record. Only two other songs from the 80s have attained the coveted billion-view status: Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and A-ha's "Take on Me," per The Washington Post. "That is mind-blowing. The world is a wonderful and beautiful place and I am very lucky," the singer, now 55, said of the milestone in an Instagram video on July 29. Astley also announced in a separate post that he would hold a giveaway to celebrate the milestone, writing: "To celebrate 1 Billion views for 'Never Gonna Give You Up' I'm releasing a limited & numbered 7-inch blue vinyl of the song, 2500 of them and I'll be signing them all!" The billion-view mark is a considerably less elusive goal for musicians releasing music in the YouTube age. On Billboard's ranking of the ten most-watched music videos of all time on YouTube, all ten videos have at least three billion views each. Singers are now also reaching the billion-view mark in a matter of months. Adele's "Hello" reached billion-view status in 87 days when it was released in 2016. Luis Fonsi's "Despacito" hit the milestone in 96 days, and Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" managed it in 97 days.
If he owns the rights to the song he made a fortune on youtube....even if someone else posted the song...he'd monetize their clip automatically....youtube is brutal about monetizing copywritten music...guitar teachers that want to teach a Led Zeppelin song now don't get the money from that lesson...it goes to Led Zeppelin..it's ruined some 20 year old guitar teaching sites for people who studied cover songs....times are changing around the net
