The RIAA isn’t Totally Wrong (YouTube)
June 26th, 2006 by MrsBarnesSure, they brought this all on themselves. Suing kids over downloading MP3’s was not the way to go – and the PR from that has been horrible. But with some of their concerns over YouTube, they are right.
YouTube is a site where users can upload videos for others users (and anyone else) to see. If you read their policy, these videos should be videos that the person owns the copyright too – so lots of “me doing something silly” types of videos along with serious film makers trying to get their name out would use it. However, YouTube doesn’t police its site – so there are TONS of clips from TV Shows, and MUSIC VIDEOS. In some sense a marketers dream (just search for the new Xenadrine ad), but it’s my thoughts that it can ruin a small time producer.
A lot of people say “well its great promotion if they post your video everywhere”. Sure it might be. But isnt it the up to the copyright holders to decide how they would like to promote? If xenadrine wants to encourage people to post their commercial everywhere while Epic doesnt want x video from Y artist there, they are BOTH right. They own the footage, they can decide.
The RIAA is messing this up a little. Instead of going after YouTube for massively allowing copywritten material all over the place, they are after individuals putting up mock videos of them performing copywritten songs. Yes, it’s their right – but I see it as a really bad PR move. They are ruining the whole argument against YouTube by making themselves seem like bullies.
The argument should be:
YouTube is making money off of the material uploaded to their website, although they arent turning a profit yet – part of it is paying their bills. They just recently recieved a second round of VC funding to keep going, in hopes to become a well running business. Whats wrong about this? Well, much of their material isn’t theirs and isn’t the users. They are making money off of other peoples work without permission. This is Napster for video! The idea for a website where users share home-made videos is great. The idea for a website where users use their cell phones or VCR’s to tape pay-per-view WWE matches on TV and upload it is wrong.
Recently we found almost all of our live videos on YouTube. “Great!” you say, “That’s free promotion!!”. Well they were in fact viewed tens of thousands of times yet we never had one referral link come in from YouTube. There are no credits as to who did the video (to be fair some had our logo in the corner). Why would people come find us when they can just watch it on YouTube? We don’t have a team of employees that can surf and message people to “please take our video down”. We have to use our own time for this. When users refuse? We get to sit down and write out a long detailed DMCA notice and mail it to YouTube – for each video.
So while the RIAA seems like a big bully with all this remember the little guys like us. I wonder how much YouTube made off the google ads on our videos? I wonder if those people saw those videos on our site if they would have watched other videos by us. Probably! But instead they saw one video and had no clue who did it. They might have become fans of the show and watched on TV as well. But we will never know. Our videos of bands were just another in the line right along with bootlegged cell phone video footage of the same bands.
The best post I have seen about YouTube: http://www.calacanis.com/2006/02/20/youtube-is-not-a-real-business/
When YouTube enacts policies to check for pirated material I will be all for that website! Let the users share what the users create. Stop promoting piracy!
[...] Then this recent development Im sure you have noticed -?Enhanced CDs. Just about every new release has a ton of cool video on the CD or on an accompying DVD that doesnt cost you any extra. Sure you could probably wait for some loser to rip it on YouTube, but then you are stuck watching it on a shitty little screen and we all know YouTube sucks anyway. [...]