On a slow news day, one might find some interest in the fact that the author of “Never Gonna Give You Up” feels exploited by YouTube. Seems Pete Waterman earned just $16 from YouTube, despite more than 154 million views of the song.

In this corner, we have Waterman…

There was I sitting at Christmas thinking, ‘I must have made a few bob this year with the old Rickrolling‘,” he said.”I rang my publisher and they said ‘You’ll be all right’, until I saw the royalty statement. £11.Panorama did a documentary on the exploitation of foreign workers in Dubai,” he said. “I feel like one of those workers, because I earned less for a year’s work off Google or YouTube than they did off the Bahrain government.”

In the next corner, we have Big Joe Smith, who helped popularize the Rick Astley song and the celebrated practice of “Rick Rolling.” Smith, who was the 27th hire at YouTube and acted as community liaison, told Katie’s Opinion’s Craig Sumsky:

Well actually, the most memorable of all would really have to be the RickRoll on April 1, 2008.  I was behind that whole thing (laughing really hard).  We set it so no matter what video you clicked on the YouTube home page it took you to the YouTube RickRoll channel. In one day I RickRolled seven million people in nineteen countries… who else can say they did that?  We even cleared it with Rick Astley’s people. Good times man, that was alot of fun.  Check out the RickRoll channel on YouTube, www.youtube.com/user/YTRickRollsYou

Gentleman, let the debates begin. Should Waterman have his just desserts? Or is he being a baby because he didn’t make money when his song (as song by Rick Astley) became an international joke?

• On one hand, an artists deserves his royalties.
• On the other, I’m not sure anyone made much money on these views (which were largely not monetized with ads).

Need we remind you that all shots must be below the belt?