Like many I am a regular user of youtube... It's possibly and probably the internets largest and most popular means of distributing media, be it a new song from an unknown artist (names & favourites of mine that come to mind are Marie' Digby, Elliot Friedman, Esmee Denters and Kali Azzura) or just a funny video of something you did with your buddies last weekend. I dunno, it could be anything. More than once in the past, I have heard the end of a song on the radio and looked it up on youtube to hear the full version or see the music video that accompanies that song. Youtube is also great for celebrity nerws channels if you're into that sort of thing. MTV always have good videos on it of all the award ceremonies they cover, and plenty of other networks do the same. So we've established that I, like many, am a fan of youtube. But over the past few weeks I have been seeing messages like "This video is not available in your country" or "Copyrights restrict us from playing this video outside the US" or "This video has been removed due to copyright infringement". Amateur singers who have thousands if not millions of subscribers have had their youtube account suspended with threats of deleting all their videos if they do not remove the ones which breach copyright law (mostly songs used as soundtracks to videos or covers of songs) and have been forced to remove content that made them famous in the first place. This is DRM at its worst, taking free content away from the masses, one video at a time. I think it's too far to be honest. If someone wants to cover the latest chart topping song and stick it on youtube to see what their mates think of it, they should be allowed. Think for a second about how much money youtube must be paying how many staff to sit and watch newly uploaded videos each day to see if they breach copyright law. Before anyone posts the other side of the argument on this topic, please understand that I'm well informed on the music/ film industry's view on copyright law and how it affects youtube, but can a few hundred thousand people listening to a low bitrate version of a song really spoil the sales of a multi million selling album tot he point where they need to be taking free content and limiting who in the world can watch it because of where they live or what they're doing with it? I don't think it's a sensible move and I think youtube are going to end up regretting the drastic move that they have been forced into making. /discuss people of bit-tech!
They started a serious effort to combat copyright infringement in Jan, 2009. Seems the pressure is just now getting more attention. john
I used to use youtube alot for viewing music videos, but since i got about a string of about 4 or 5 "this video isnt available in your country" messages i havent used it since, There are still songs available with fan made videos but i like to watch the official videos personally, i dont see why some agreement cant be reached that allows everybody to view everything.
This is what I think will happen in a lot of cases...I agree with what you say about the official videos, I like seeing what video originally went with a particular song, and you're right about them coming to an agreement. Record companies make enough money from album sales and see something pathetic like a less than 3% decrease in sales due to online availability of their songs via youtube/ bittorrent etc and amongst hundreds of millions of dollars I really dont see how <3% can be all that important to them. I genuinely think someone was bored one day and started to write a lawsuit to throw at youtube to see what would happen.
Yeah it's a joke at the moment, a lot of the videos I go to watch are blocked, it gets quite annoying.
The cost in wages and working-hours of people employed by youtube to police and moderate its content is nothing compared to the costs they'd face if sued by the respective copyright holders or their corporate representatives (RIAA, MPAA, etc). The people running Youtube don't really have a choice in the matter.
The music industry needed a centralised hub because physical distribution was the only option - Someone needed to ship thoses records, tapes, and CDs all over the world. The entire financial model for the music industry was set up around this logistical model and now that the logistical model is defunct the music industry is lashing out, kicking and screaming trying to prevent it's inevitable death. I wouldn't sweat it too much, the record companies will die off in a surprisingly short time and will be replaced by a decentralised multiple-patronage system. Mostly the record companies are pissed off that they aren't the only ones stealing other people's music
see this thread. it really makes me sad that some publishers are so short-sighted when it comes to copyright ownership. i was watching something on youtube the other day, and there was a little box below the video description that said "this video contains content from EMI", with a link to EMIs official youtube channel. now why can't all the publishers do this? they're not losing anything by somebody uploading a copy of their music video, it's just free publicity.
