Country music star Garth Brooks has sounded off on the digital music era and concluded that YouTube is "the devil," says Billboard.

"YouTube; oh my god," Brooks said in an interview with Access Hollywood. "They claim they pay people, [but] they're not paying anything, either. People get millions and millions and millions of views, and they don't get squat."

He continued, "Trust me. Songwriters are hurting. So, I applaud Miss Taylor [Swift] and I applaud everyone for standing up for the songwriters, because without them, music is nothing."

Brooks does not have a YouTube channel but many of his music videos were uploaded onto the site by fans. He had previously asked to have his content removed from the service but was told it was not possible.

"You can't get out of it," Brooks said. "I had the sweetest meeting with [YouTube]. They were all fired up. They were the sweetest, and they're all, like, 12.So young! I said, 'I just have the first question: How do you get out?' Silence. You don't. You don't get out.'"

He also sounded off on Swift's decision to leave online streaming service Spotify and said, "When music starts standing up for itself, it's gonna get a lot better."

He urged artists to stand up against big players in the digital music distribution industry whom he believes are taking advantage of singers and songwriters.

"Guys, there's some big friends in music we need to stand up to," he said. I mean, if iTunes is gonna tell you how to sell your stuff and it's only gonna go this way, don't forget who's creating the music."

The country legend recently embarked on digital music distribution. He launched Ghost Tunes in conjunction with his comeback album "Man Against Machine" earlier this month, Forbes says.

Ghost Tunes CEO Randy Bernard said the company's aim is to provide an option for musicians to get paid enough for their work.

"We know we're the smallest ant on this anthill," Bernard said. "We wanted to make sure there was an alternative that existed."