Record labels lose odd-smelling YouTube views

YouTube have been tidying up view figures, removing dubious counts.

Who has been especially hit by this purge o'views?

Why, record labels. The Daily Dot reports:

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.

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.

Of course, there's no evidence of wrong-doing, and Google is known for its caprice in how it handles, well, everything.

But it does look as if, once again, the labels haven't quite been living up to the virtues they expect the rest of us to achieve.

[UPDATE: Billboard thinks it can account for nearly all the lost views. The "nearly" is significant]