YouTube Download Sites Are the Biggest Piracy Threat To Music Industry, Industry Figures Say (independent.co.uk)

Websites dedicated to "stream ripping" music from YouTube represent the biggest threat to the global music business, UK news outlet The Independent reported this week, citing industry figures, who added that that these shady sites are also posing business threat to "fantastic range" of legal streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. The report describes the nature of the issue: Sites that allow YouTube videos to be converted into an MP3 file and illegally downloaded to someone's phone or computer are attracting millions of visitors, with estimates suggesting that a third of 16-24-year-olds in the UK have ripped music from the Google-owned platform. Other platforms affected by the illegal ripping sites include DailyMotion, SoundCloud and Vimeo, however YouTube is by far the most pirated. The results of a crackdown that began in 2016 are beginning to be seen, thanks to a coordinated effort by organizations representing record companies in the US and the UK. Earlier this week, stream ripping website MP3Fiber was forced to shut down following legal pressure. However, dozens of sites offering similar services still remain active and are easily accessible through Google, whose search engine provides more than 100 million results for the term "YouTube MP3 converter." The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said that even referring to the aforementioned questionable websites as "stream ripping" sites is misstating copyright law. "There exists a vast and growing volume of online video that is licensed for free downloading and modification, or contains audio tracks that are not subject to copyright," the EFF told the US Office of the United States Trade Representative last year. "Moreover, many audio extractions qualify as non-infringing fair uses under copyright. Providing a service that is capable of extracting audio tracks for these lawful purposes is itself lawful, even if some users infringe."

Comments

Speakers are

[Chewbacon]

If you can hear it, then you can rip it. Get rid of speakers that allow people to hear music and you've beaten piracy.

Re:Speakers are

[Darinbob]

The best way to beat music piracy is to start making only crappy music. Oh wait, I think they're already working on that...

Re: Speakers are

[nasch]

Just to present a single counterexample, Appalachian Spring premiered in 1944.

Tell me how

[Anonymous Coward]

this is any different from the Supreme Court ruling in 1984 about using VHS tapes to record TV. This is just the 2018 version of that.

Re:Tell me how

[Alain Williams]

50 years ago most of my peers borrowed records (12" vinyl) and copied them to cassette tapes. The music industry complained but did not go bust. Youtube ripping is just today's copying to cassette. I agree that it is breaking copyright but it won't kill them, indeed it may be that Piracy Can Help Music Sales of Many Artists, Research Shows.

The War On Drugs ...

[CaptainDork]

... oh, sorry.

The War On Piracy ...

Know what?

Both models work the same, as in not.

LOL

[Archfeld]

The music industry and the sampled rebroadcast crap they call music for the most part are the biggest danger to the music industry today.

Downloading from Youtube is legal, you shitheads.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hometaping didn't kill music. In fact, it preceded the most profitable era the music industry has ever enjoyed. Take your fucking propaganda and shove it where the sun don't shine.

Radio recording threat

[GeekWithAKnife]

That ability to record radio is a serious threat that steals food from the mouths of poor artists. We *must* ban all casette recorders due to this terrible threat. If people can record radio in an unregulated fashion the music industry will die. Sorry I meant to say that if people can dub casette tapes the music industry will die. Erm, I mean if people can record music digitally the music industry will die. *cough* Apologies. I meant that if people can send each other MP3s music will cease to exist. (But is there a pattern? -The music industry is going from strength tk strength FYI)

Re: Radio recording threat

[sound vision]

On radio, the industry still gets to control the playlists, and through that, availability. Not so much on a site where you can pull up any track ever, on demand.

Re:Nope

[Joce640k]

Um, yes, that what the headline said.

Youtube is a threat to the music industry, not to the musicians.

Are the Biggest Piracy Threat To Music Industry

[dissy]

Are the Biggest Piracy Threat To Music Industry

You've used that phrase so many times that it's lost all meaning.

Besides, I've consulted with our crack team of honey badgers and we are in unanimous consensus that the music industry is the biggest threat to the music industry.
It's a scientific fact.

So stupid it hurts...

[jedidiah]

This is a further reminder that there has ALWAYS be "free" content for as long as broadcasting has been around. That's longer than there has been paid physical media. If you can watch it for free on YouTube then IT DOESN'T MATTER that you can "record" it. You ALREADY have a payment avoidance mechanism.

It's just like radio. It's just like MTV.

Still around

[OrangeTide]

Napster came out 16 years ago, the music industry is still here and still making money. You can only cry wolf so many times before people start ignoring you.

They sound like a broken record

[Solandri]

My apologies to you young'uns who have no idea what a broken record sounds like (the needle skips a groove so the same section of music plays over and over again).

• Cassette tapes were the biggest piracy threat since they allowed people to make their own copies of music.
• Combination radios with cassette recorders were the biggest piracy threat since they allowed people to record music playing on the radio.
• The VCR was the biggest piracy threat to the movie industry.
• Videotape rental stores were the biggest piracy threat to the movie industry, since people could just watch any movie they wanted.
• MP3s were the biggest piracy threat since they allowed music to be freely traded without any media.
• The Internet was the biggest piracy threat since it allowed music and movies to be distributed without needing physical media.
• YouTube is the biggest piracy threat since it makes it easy for people to capture a copy of a song they're listening to.

Everyone else understands that new technology comes with advantages and disadvantages. But the new technology is preferred because the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Only the music and movie industries don't seem to get this, and focus only on the disadvantages while ignoring the advantages. Their piracy claims have been wrong every single time. Cassette tapes led to increased music sales, since it freed music from a record needle sitting in a groove, meaning you could now listen to music in your car or while jogging. Radio/cassette recorders allowed people to listen to music two different ways with a single device, so led to people listening to more music since the playback devices now cost less them less. VCRs spawned the movie sale industry, allowing movie studios to make more money than they ever could through theater releases alone. Sales to video rental stores eventually eclipsed videotape sales as the biggest revenue source for movie studios. MP3s became the ubiquitous method to store and distribute music in the 21st century. Internet-based music and movie sales and rentals have now eclipsed disc-based sales and rentals. And YouTube remains the easiest way to quickly check out new releases and new genres of music, and view movie trailers on demand without having to hope to catch it during a commercial break on TV

In every single case, their prophecies of doom by piracy have not only been proven wrong, but the new technology has led to increased sales of music and movies. Yet these two industries cannot seem to break their habit of demanding the new technology be shut down before it "destroys" them. Life isn't perfect. You're never going to get rid of piracy. As long as the benefits of a service like YouTube outweigh the piracy drawbacks, it's a net win. Just like retail stores don't shut down just because they lose some inventory to shoplifting. The benefits of increased sales from allowing customers to see, feel, and browse the merchandise in person outweighs the drawback of loss due to shoplifting.

Re:They sound like a broken record

[UnknownSoldier]

Great list! I would also add:

* Humming music was the biggest piracy threat because artists weren't getting their "fair share"

* Used CD sales was the biggest piracy threat because according to clueless, greedy asshats artists aren't paid royalties on these transactions,

* Guitar Hero was the biggest piracy threat since it allowed gamers to play music over and over again onlyh having to pay once,

Aerosmith has reportedly earned more from Guitar Hero : Aerosmith than from any single album in the band's history.

* iTunes was the biggest piracy threat since it allowed music and movies to be distributed without needing physical media.

This is different from .mp3 since Apple's .aac used to be DRM protected but did these wankers complain about that when Apple removed DRM from their music?

Furthermore, why did it take a computer company to sell music???

The only thing the music industry knows how to is whine, constantly. It's not fucking rocket science. People just want:

* Access to music, regardless of device, and
* The ability to pay for it.

Piracy shows you have a distribution opportunity not a price problem.

Re:They sound like a broken record

[rsmith-mac]

I think we're sort of missing the point of the article though. It's not an article about how the music industry is doomed, it's a study on what's currently the most popular way to pirate music.

Each of those methods was the most widely used method at one point. Cassette dubbing, MP3 sharing, and now ripping the audio track of a YouTube video. And each remained the most popular method until something better came along. MP3s offered perfect digital duplication, and now you can do the same thing by ripping YouTube, but without having to track down a reliable source.

Which yeah, probably doesn't have the RIAA sleeping all that soundly. Each iteration has made the process easier. At this point pretty much any moron can do it.

Money

[Colourspace]

I was under the impression musicians make the vast bulk of any cash they do make from live work and merch and not recordings any more, anyway?

illegaly? not in EU

[citizenr]

Remember that retarded blank CD tax? Guess what - it came with legal language allowing personal copy.
PERFECTLY LEGAL in my country (and probably half the developed world).

I remember being 12 years old...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and being afraid to use things like LimeWire, BitTorrent, etc., so I just used a 3.5mm male-to-male audio cable, running from line-out to line-in and used Audacity to record the audio while I played the music on Grooveshark, YouTube, et. al. It was rudimentary and was kind of funny now that I look back at it but it worked.

Even still, my 12 yo paranoid self thought I was going to be caught somehow (I theorized that the RIAA would detect that I was running Audacity while recording something off the Internet, and would record my IP address to sue me).

Years later I buy the majority of my music *although* I do occasionally torrent/rip things I cannot find (rare oldies) or torrent compilations that I like to sift through on my free time to find what I like (usually chill, downtempo and ambient), which has led me to seek out the artist's work to buy on Amazon if I like what I hear.

Re:Who the fuck still pirates music?

[stealth_finger]

What is this 2008? Apple Music gives you more songs than you could possibly listen to in a lifetime for $10 a month, with new music magically appearing in your phone every Thursday night when the clock strikes 12. Who wants to waste their time on some fucking torrent site or following dead links on some other download site?

This attitude right here is the problem. Just shut up, pay your subs and listen to this crap.