WTF? Youtube is now rejecting all types of music videos.

[diablomozart]

i totally agree...i think millions from mcdonalds for a cup of hot coffee was asinine as well....there have been way too many stupid and frivolous lawsuits perpetrated by people just because they can and want their money without having to work for it...not what america was supposed to be imho...d.m.

[Gartron]

*** EDIT: The situation linked above by UFORocks in the UK is utter and total nonsense! For cryin' out loud, they're sueing because employees play a radio at work? That judge should be flogged for not dismissing this garbage.

Thats been going on for years over here, any shop that plays music , be it a record store or a garage needs to have a licence to do so ...and don't get me started on the fact that we also need to but a licence to own a tv (but you get a discount if your blind!) one of the many draconian laws we live under over here!

[Spivonious]

You're kidding right?

Hahahaha... Yeah, it's great out here... My unemployment check almost pays half my mortgage... It's all good, haha...

Not kidding at all. Then again, our housing prices never got superinflated.

Thats been going on for years over here, any shop that plays music , be it a record store or a garage needs to have a licence to do so ...and don't get me started on the fact that we also need to but a licence to own a tv (but you get a discount if your blind!) one of the many draconian laws we live under over here!

They have to fund the BBC somehow!

[Rsmacker]

The situation linked above by UFORocks in the UK is utter and total nonsense! For cryin' out loud, they're sueing because employees play a radio at work? That judge should be flogged for not dismissing this garbage. The radio station(s) has already paid a fee to broadcast the music. Would it make a difference if each employee had their own damn radio tuned to the same station? It is precisely actions like this that make the industry look like nothing more than a bunch of greedy imbeciles.

Too right that people playing music, as a part, or by-product of their business should have to pay for it. Yes, some of the money does find its way back to fat bastards who are making plenty, but the PPL and PRS (Performing Rights Society) benefit the little guy too.

Imagine being a song-writer, sitting at home in your shithouse, you write a nifty little tune that Kylie Minogue decides to record, it goes to No 1 around the world, not to mention being on adverts, telly jingles, films etc. (as well as being played on transistor radios in garages). It's the kind of tune that EVERYONE recognises, and hums.
Is it unreasonable to want to get some pay for that, or do you think "Fuck you, you got your £200, tough shit"?
Kylie Minogue gets her big cut, the label gets its loot. How about the not-very-photogenic, balding old songwriter?

It could be any one of you, you old farts who are NEVER going to be playing your music on MTV, you are too old and embarrassing. The next big pretty youngsters band may love it, record it though, and make YOUR tune the tune of the year. You would want paying for it, right?

That's what these licences are for - making sure the publishers and writers get their dues, and they are more likely to be the skint bloke writing a killer tune whilst his landlord breaks down the door to evict him.

If you want to play other peoples' music but can't build the annual licence fee into your business plan and budget for it, fuck you, you don't deserve to be in business. The alternative is to sit down and write your own killer tune, play that all day long in your bar.See how many punters you have in next week to hear your latest opus.

It's obviously a shit to see cunts like Lars Ulrich whingeing about his royalties, so he can spunk it up the wall buying another shitty painting, but to many people these fees put food on their table and keep them coming up with those killer tunes we all love.

There's two sides to every story, it's not just a greedy tax on having fun.

(Yes Kylie, please feel free to record "Stick up my Dirtbox, Dry", I wrote it specially for you.)

[GinSonic]

YouTube is one of the ways I search for new bands. It would suck royally if they restricted music vids.

Will music vids still be viewable? That is to say, you just want to give 'em a look or a listen, but have no intention of downloading to your computer. Yes? No?
G.

[UFORocks]

Too right that people playing music, as a part, or by-product of their business should have to pay for it. Yes, some of the money does find its way back to fat bastards who are making plenty, but the PPL and PRS (Performing Rights Society) benefit the little guy too.

Imagine being a song-writer, sitting at home in your shithouse, you write a nifty little tune that Kylie Minogue decides to record, it goes to No 1 around the world, not to mention being on adverts, telly jingles, films etc. (as well as being played on transistor radios in garages). It's the kind of tune that EVERYONE recognises, and hums.
Is it unreasonable to want to get some pay for that, or do you think "Fuck you, you got your £200, tough shit"?
Kylie Minogue gets her big cut, the label gets its loot. How about the not-very-photogenic, balding old songwriter?

It could be any one of you, you old farts who are NEVER going to be playing your music on MTV, you are too old and embarrassing. The next big pretty youngsters band may love it, record it though, and make YOUR tune the tune of the year. You would want paying for it, right?

That's what these licences are for - making sure the publishers and writers get their dues, and they are more likely to be the skint bloke writing a killer tune whilst his landlord breaks down the door to evict him.

If you want to play other peoples' music but can't build the annual licence fee into your business plan and budget for it, fuck you, you don't deserve to be in business. The alternative is to sit down and write your own killer tune, play that all day long in your bar.See how many punters you have in next week to hear your latest opus.

It's obviously a shit to see cunts like Lars Ulrich whingeing about his royalties, so he can spunk it up the wall buying another shitty painting, but to many people these fees put food on their table and keep them coming up with those killer tunes we all love.

There's two sides to every story, it's not just a greedy tax on having fun.

(Yes Kylie, please feel free to record "Stick up my Dirtbox, Dry", I wrote it specially for you.)

It's not the fan's fault that the recording industry's business model has failed to keep up with the times.

Rather than pull all their content off of YouTube and sue Google, Time Warner should be working with Google to get more content out to the public that people will want to buy at a fair price.

Edit: I'd be pretty pissed off if someone else took my idea, packaged and sold it and made millions off of it. I agree that people should be protected from that. But that's not the same as using copyright law as a club to beat and extort money from a person for playing a CD within earshot of someone else.

[Spivonious]

How many of you would pay YouTube a monthly fee of $5-$10 to be able to watch any copyrighted material you wanted to?

[CharvelRocker]

And the sad thing is at this rate, RIAA and the fat cats will have no music industry to line their pockets with, as no one can afford it anymore. I predict in five years the industry will have evaporated, or at least the big labels. Does anyone have numbers of the amount of records released on signed labels vs indie labels?

[roodyrocker]

Yeah, with how amazingly great the economy is, and how cheap, utilities, insurance are, and how DUI laws are really keeping people home in general, another 3-12k a year for a local bar (that is hardly able to stay open anyways) that has bands Friday and Saturday to play for their 100 customers, to pay out shouldn't be a problem at all...

Very few people want to hear originals... On youtube or in the bar...

Fucking ridiculous...

Cleveland Metal is absolutely right. Around my area no one has bands 5 nights a week first of all. Maybe Fri-Sat and even then sometimes they have one night DJ and the other a band. Second, The size bars we play at, 100 people would be a packed house. Third, the fees everyone is quoting are BMI only, add ASCAP on top of that which has its own complex formula for figuring out their fees and also factor in the fact that they pay those fees for DJ's and jukeboxes too, not just bands. The result? Well, in my area the bars quit having bands! Thats the result as they simply can not afford those fees. These places are struggling to stay open and BMI and ASCAP want to get their greedy little paws on their money. By the way Motley Crue was mentioned earlier, and I like them however on one tour they played Led Zep's Rock & Roll for an encore. Did THEY have to contend with ASCAP and BMI fees? Did they send Zep a check?
This is really ridiculous, let the locals have their cover bands in local bars. No one wants to go see originals in these places, its a ywaner. I'm starting to become thankful that places like China don't obey their copyright laws

[Rsmacker]

It's not the fan's fault that the recording industry's business model has failed to keep up with the times.

Rather than pull all their content off of YouTube and sue Google, Time Warner should be working with Google to get more content out to the public that people will want to buy at a fair price.

Edit: I'd be pretty pissed off if someone else took my idea, packaged and sold it and made millions off of it. I agree that people should be protected from that. But that's not the same as using copyright law as a club to beat and extort money from a person for playing a CD within earshot of someone else.

Certainly, Warner et al should be working out how MORE people can get their hands on the music they are peddling, not restricting it until they get more cash out of it. The end result, and this is in answer to Spivonius too, is that people WON'T pay a few quid every month to get something, they will move on somewhere else and get it for nothing. That's the nature of it - you and I don't want to pay for it, so we will find some way of getting it for free. They need to work out how to do business around that inate human trait - wanting something for nothing, and the fact that we, out here in cyberland, will always be half a step ahead on the technology front than some fat fucker in a suit in his office. Those days are gone.

So Youtube bans music videos, well, in a few years time we may be looking back and reminiscing about that very site, after it begins a non-music slide into oblivion. No web-site is an unassailable part of the fabric of the web, a household name (apart from maybe Google). Just because they are the current big thing doesn't mean they are the only ones - remember how you used to get files from Napster? I bet kids today haven't got a clue who Napster are/were/could have been, but they still download stuff. All that Napster fuss prevented a grand total of absolute zero being downloaded for free. Everyone just moved somewhere else and got what they wanted.

Youtube should be sitting down with Warner and working how to keep playing music for any of its visitors, before some obscure Chinese site starts beaming videos direct to our foil helmets, for free.

Fucking hell I just remembered, those things used to be called "Promotional videos", Warner should be paying Youtube for promoting their product!

(All that doesn't negate what I said earlier, that was about public performance for commercial gain, and the rightful dues owed to the writers etc, not bloated companies trying to cling on to outdated business instead of moving with the times and being on the cutting edge.)

[Rsmacker]

By the way Motley Crue was mentioned earlier, and I like them however on one tour they played Led Zep's Rock & Roll for an encore. Did THEY have to contend with ASCAP and BMI fees? Did they send Zep a check?

No, but the venue that they played in bought a licence. A little part of that pot of money was sent to a bloke called Jimmy Page, who is now struggling as a washing machine repairman in Scunthorpe following an obscure and short-lived stab at fame. It helped keep Sharkie's Loan Co off his back, who were coming to collect his fingertips.

[UFORocks]

How many of you would pay YouTube a monthly fee of $5-$10 to be able to watch any copyrighted material you wanted to?

They have to be able to compete with an abundance of free poor quality content by putting up and abundance of higher quality versions that people might actually pay for.

In that case, yes, I'd pay $5 to $10 a month, or maybe even per view / dl if the price were reasonable.

Edit: They'd still have to allow uploads though. The longer a customer is in the store and exposed to your products the more likely they are to find something they like and buy it, right? A great way to keep people in your store is to give them stuff for free.

If I were a record company I would let users continue to upload mass quantities of poorly recorded copyrighted material (e.g. parts of concerts, DVDs, music videos, etc). I would then ID the copyrighted material on the site, find a better quality version of it in my archives, and when someone clicks the link to the material offer them the option to watch the better version instead for say $0.10, or download it for say $0.50 or $1.

As a user I would not want to pay for every single thing I watch, but I'd pay $1 to download the occasional "good quality" video of a UFO song played live that I could watch whenever I want.


-Steve

[joelayres]

As a user I would not want to pay for every single thing I watch, but I'd pay $1 to download the occasional "good quality" video of a UFO song played live that I could watch whenever I want.


-Steve

I think you've articulated it quite well. Right now, I wouldn't even dream of paying for anything that is on YouTube as the quality is not worth paying for. If the quality were very good, I would indeed purchase what I wanted to keep.

I have absolutely no problem with the artists getting paid for their work, but lets get real here - a radio playing in an automotive shop that employees listen to while working is going too far. A business paying a royalty to have a radio playing while customers are on hold is rediculous. A hospital ER paying royalties to have a TV in the waiting area is plain stupid. Speaking for myself, I have no problem paying a fee if I perceive that fee to be reasonable. If not, I will find a way around it. I suspect that I'm not the only one who feels that way.

[joelayres]

No, but the venue that they played in bought a licence. A little part of that pot of money was sent to a bloke called Jimmy Page, who is now struggling as a washing machine repairman in Scunthorpe following an obscure and short-lived stab at fame. It helped keep Sharkie's Loan Co off his back, who were coming to collect his fingertips.

The problem with this concept is that Joe Mama that wrote a song 30 years ago that hasn't been played in the last 29 years also gets a part of that pot while doing nothing to earn it.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

-i would not pay a monthly fee to veiw anything on the internet.
-record companies have been so greedy in the past and scewed so many artist that they deserve to fail.
-hearing music and watching videos should be free. holding a disc with artwork in your hand should cost you $10 or less and should go directly to the artist.

but that's just my .02

i would like to see a website that lets you stream any song by any band for free, without the ability to download the songs/videos. just listening, viewing videos, etc.
like myspace for music. have a free acount where you store your music collection and playlists. and on top of that have the ability to click something to order the cd/dvd, with artwork. with the internet growing the way it is i could see the ipod replaced with your regular digital comminicator (cell phone) with constant internet access therefor access to you free music account so you can hear whatever you want, whenever you want.

make listening to the music and watching the videos free, charge for the CD/DVD with artwork. Bands will make their money on touring and merch and CD/DVD sales.
cause the collector will always want to hold the product in there hands.

i know this will never happen cause they won't find a way to make enough money on it. since we all know money runs the world.