The issue with YouTube.

[l. ron hubbard]

I do not in any way question the positive effect youtube has on the world. The site makes it possible for anyone to access information which would otherwise be harder to find.

All of that is good, but is it legal? If you hadn't noticed, the vast majority of the website is copyright violation. All of the music has been ripped off of copyrighted CDs, DVDs, etc. This isn't of course restricted to music. Movies, documentaries, and other media are all there for free.

Is this not a form of theft?

[weissenberg2]

I think that this is not the website's fault but the uploader's fault.

but anyway, they ask you not to break the copyright law but people do it anyway and YouTube does nothing about it.

[indutrial]

I do not in any way question the positive effect youtube has on the world. The site makes it possible for anyone to access information which would otherwise be harder to find.

All of that is good, but is it legal? If you hadn't noticed, the vast majority of the website is copyright violation. All of the music has been ripped off of copyrighted CDs, DVDs, etc. This isn't of course restricted to music. Movies, documentaries, and other media are all there for free.

Is this not a form of theft?

Whether it's legal or not, why should we really care that much. A music recording on Youtube sounds like crap compared to the quality one might find on a CD or even MP3. Hearing a track on Youtube is not much different then hearing somebody else's copy of a CD being played at a house party. By the same token, if I hold a dusty mirror up across the room from my TV when Entourage is on and my neighbor watches the mirror from outside my window, should HBO sue me for infringement? The line should be drawn if and when the uploaders start to seek profit off of work that doesn't belong to them. Aside from that, all the moralizing and head-scratching about copyright infringement is really pointless, because that entire legal field of interest is a complete shitstorm of opportunism and petty bickering amongst people who probably don't even legally own the stuff that they're arguing over.

[richard black]

I think indutrial's point about copyright is well made.

I have reservations about YouTube in that it gives an apparent legitimacy to people whose contribution to the arts is tenuous at best - students I work with look up something on YouTube as a reference but don't seem to be aware that it might be a performance given by someone considerably less talented and experienced than themselves (or it might be Emil Gilels, Vladimir Horowitz or Lord God Almighty but they never seem to have heard of anyone and don't know!).

[indutrial]

I think indutrial's point about copyright is well made.

I have reservations about YouTube in that it gives an apparent legitimacy to people whose contribution to the arts is tenuous at best - students I work with look up something on YouTube as a reference but don't seem to be aware that it might be a performance given by someone considerably less talented and experienced than themselves (or it might be Emil Gilels, Vladimir Horowitz or Lord God Almighty but they never seem to have heard of anyone and don't know!).

As a music teacher, I always have to refer my students to "find such-and-such song on Youtube" since there's almost no chance that they're going to buy the actual CD or even spend the $6-10 required to download the music to their iPods. I'm pretty convinced that my students spend all of their f**king money at Starbucks and Gamestop. Even when I give them CD-R copies of the lesson material, it's hard to tell if they actually listen to the damn thing (not while important things like Facebook are around!) Anyhow, in that sense, Youtube is somewhat of a help. As to the matter of Youtube legitimizing tenuous artists, the site does at least invoke a rating system that, in the long run, affects which videos will or will not pop up in a search engine. Universally-panned videos (bad camera angles, lousy performance) are usually given no quarter by people who comment, and even when the comments are disabled, I'm pretty certain that the 1-5 star system still exists.

Aside from that, I do consider Youtube to be an important and valuable piece of the internet which has done wonders for independent media. I subscribe to numerous Youtubers who present original media (mostly comedic stuff and niche-interest things like video game shows) and in many cases, it beats out normal TV for my attention.

[l. ron hubbard]

Whether it's legal or not, why should we really care that much. A music recording on Youtube sounds like crap compared to the quality one might find on a CD or even MP3. Hearing a track on Youtube is not much different then hearing somebody else's copy of a CD being played at a house party. By the same token, if I hold a dusty mirror up across the room from my TV when Entourage is on and my neighbor watches the mirror from outside my window, should HBO sue me for infringement? The line should be drawn if and when the uploaders start to seek profit off of work that doesn't belong to them. Aside from that, all the moralizing and head-scratching about copyright infringement is really pointless, because that entire legal field of interest is a complete shitstorm of opportunism and petty bickering amongst people who probably don't even legally own the stuff that they're arguing over.

Concerning the details, the fact is that it uploading such content on youtube is illegal. I see how most of us take it for granted, but I don't see how the artists themselves can profit when all of their output is being ripped off. What is the incentive for bying CDs then?

Yes, the quality on youtube is bad, but then again the vast pupulation probably doesn't hear it.

[indutrial]

Concerning the details, the fact is that it uploading such content on youtube is illegal. I see how most of us take it for granted, but I don't see how the artists themselves can profit when all of their output is being ripped off. What is the incentive for bying CDs then?

Yes, the quality on youtube is bad, but then again the vast pupulation probably doesn't hear it.

The music world, as it is right now, is glutted with more artists and songs than there ever were in the past. Not embracing the internet as music's #1 road to profit is tantamount to dooming one's self to inevitable obscurity. True, the whole situation is a double-edged sword, since most people are no longer purchasing CDs and numerous more are downloading free MP3s/watching Youtube, but this is the nature of things. Though it's definitely worse these days, people have been stealing music since it was physically possible. Back in the 1980s, I had friends who would never buy recordings, instead making copies of their friends' LPs and cassettes onto cheap Maxell tapes.

As far as can be remembered, most 'artists' are bound to lead unprofitable artistic lives, and the best artist incomes are usually the result of 'jobbing it' somehow or inheritance/outside support (since plenty of artists still have parents with capital). Pity the fool that starts a band or trains as a musician and expects the white knight of consumerism to swing by and save them. I've been in rock bands since the early 2000s and the only way to make money with that art form is to sell merchandise (shirts, limited-edition CD packaging, stickers, pins) and to sell tickets. Those are all things that are nowhere near as easy to reproduce as, say, MP3s or CD tracks. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but CD sales are a moot point. Artists are almost better off preempting the blogmasters and sharers by putting their tracks somewhere for free download. The music itself should be viewed as an artist's stab for publicity. The earnings come from elsewhere. In that sense, Youtube can only help.