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Viral Music Videos A Problem For RIAA
prostoalex writes "A few years ago music videos were considered promotional, a tease to get the viewer to buy the whole album. However, now that a commercial market for music videos is springing up, the music industry is not quite happy with YouTube, iFilm, Google Video and other video sharing sites distributing the music videos of famous artists. Billboard magazine says: 'The RIAA estimates that sales of music videos topped $3.7 million in three months, after being introduced in October. Meanwhile, the major labels also are sharing in the profits of ad-supported video-on-demand offerings from AOL, Yahoo, Music Choice and others. That is revenue the music industry is keenly interested in protecting. Hopes are that YouTube and others will ink similar deals with the industry in the long run.'"
Has the RIAA seen the quality of the videos on youtube? We're not talking about redistribution of DVDs here, these are snippets people find interesting and worth sharing. And the quality of these videos is something you'd only look at in tiny resolution on a computer, and probably only once or twice.
From the article: "Viral video sharing would not have been an issue just 18 months ago, when the labels still viewed music videos as a promotional tool for selling albums. Now that their efforts have created interest in their videos, they want to take it away in any form except for what they dictate.
The RIAA and MPAA remind me of an old Peanuts cartoon, where Lucy takes all of Linus' toys away, and leaves him a rubber band to play with... I've got to dig that up, it's so appropriate (do you remember it?).
These videos surfacing on youtube and other video sites are free publicity and advertising for the subjects! I'm beginning to think the RIAA has some bizarre credo, something along the lines of, "No matter what!, we MUST stop any sharing, enjoyment, distribution of ANYTHING that we can possible stamp with OUR ownership!". I'm also convinced the people running RIAA are totally insane.
There's an adage "there's no such thing as bad publicity". Eventually, the RIAA and MPAA may prove that wrong. Idiots.
"...the music industry is not quite happy..."
I don't think the music industry will ever be happy. I think they will always find some reason to complain, whether it was radio, audio cassette, file sharing, or now music video posting.
Respect the laws of physics, for the laws of physics have no respect for you.
Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I don't know of anyone that buys music videos, and I'm only 21. Classically, music videos are the free things on MTV and VH1 used to promote the music.
Why would I pay for something that I have to watch and can't just turn on while I'm doing other stuff, unless it is going to provide me with some new content? Once I have seen a music video once, why would I ever want one enough to pay for it again? This isn't a movie or even porn we're talking about here. This is just another example of the RIAA inflating the amount of money they actually gain from something.
Unless they're charging over a dollar each for these they would have to have sold 1.2 million per month - that's 41,000 per day. I find that highly unlikely. Nothing to see here, just the RIAA trying to squeeze blood from a turnip and screwing themselves out of a perfectly good advertising method.
A pretty girl on a music video with a good voice will make me more likely to buy a CD or song, but not if they try to make me pay for the music video, I'll just stop watching them.
And another thought, the RIAA says they made $3.7 million in 3 months... while P2P networks are out there with mp3s, movies... and probably music videos as well!
I know I've downloaded few music videos over the years, so I'm sure people share music videos out there in P2P.
Doesn't that shoot a hole in the claim that P2P file sharing is killing the RIAA when they're able to make $3.7 million in 3 months selling stuff that's available in P2P?
Respect the laws of physics, for the laws of physics have no respect for you.
Until the only way to listen to music is to walk up to a music booth through a metal detector to prevent you from bringing in any recording equipment, and up to a music booth. At this music booth you will insert five dollar bills. You will then select a song using a touchscreen. You will then take paper headphone covers from a dispenser on the wall. You will place the headphone covers over the public headphones, connected to the booth by a flexible metal tube. You will then listen to your music until your credit has expired. Rocking out or playing air guitar will be discouraged, although singing along in a quiet voice will be tolerated, unless there's somebody wihtin earshot.
Maybe then, the RIAA will stop whining.
I want the fire back.
every historical era is defined by an ideological struggle which defines the status quo of future eras
in our time, that struggle is the balance between corporate ownership and public culture
the riaa/ mpaa won't stop until they own all of our culture, period. every single bit of expression of it
its a pathology: greed, greed, greed, and it will never stop
but the struggle is too esoteric now, too new to have reached the man in the street yet
only us dweebs and tech heads see the outrageousness of this creeping doom on the horizon right now
but give it time. eventually it will rear its ugly head on the radar of public consciousness
and then maybe, hopefully, this pathology that is ip law that wants to own absolutely every bit of cultural expression will get the bitch slap down it deserves
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
>They could have seen this coming as long ago as the advent of audio and video cassettes.
The MPAA did. Their Jack Valenti told the House of Representatives in 1982 "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone". They went clear to the Supreme Court in 1984 to ban the Betamax and almost succeeded (four justices (Blackmun, Marshall, Powell and Rehnquist) agreed with the appeals court that Sony's products were illegal).
At every point in the last few decades when an innovation increased the **AA's revenues but decreased their control, they have fought it like berserkers.