Video Silence

Jan 15

Video Silence

by John Stauffer
Category: Digital Influence

Youtube on iPhone

This week’s social media controversy is brought to you by: Youtube.

Mashable broke the story earlier in the week, noting that thousands of videos that feature copyrighted Warner music have been silenced on the video sharing site, literally, by muting the audio tracks. A message below the videos reads : “This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders. The audio has been disabled.”

This is move is being positioned a compromise, the other solution being the full removal of the video itself. It’s there’s anything we’ve learned in witnessing the growing pains of Youtube it’s that music licensing is a pretty complex swamp. This post is in no way an attempt to untangle the legal implications. However, one thing is clear, music is a big part of Youtube, bigger than you may think on a video sharing site.

User Comments

One of the most common Youtube comments asks the video’s creator “what song is this?”, “who’s the artist?”. These folks aren’t asking because they’re paralegals preparing a copyright violation brief. They’re asking because they like the music. Presumably, they may like it so much that they’ll seek out more information on the band and even buy the song. (I did just that when I came across that incredible bouncing balls video ad from Sony; it’s Jose Gonzalez, btw.)

Amateur Video

I don’t know how, but I whenever I browse around on Youtube, I always manage to come across a family slideshow. The recent vacation, graduation, wedding. Whatever, they’re strangers and yet I can’t look away. These clips are pretty formulaic, over-use of goofy slide transition animation, ransom note-like use of different fonts and sizes, and….music. The music behind these clips means something to the intended audience. What about the folks who bought that must-have “Time of Your Life” Green Day song, fair and square, so that they’d able to drop it in to the wedding video. Is Warner able to identify songs that were purchased legally, say, through iTunes, or is this a blanket silencing? If so, there are a ton of muted slideshows out there right now.

Shopping Around

I often need more than the standard 30 seconds iTunes gives me to make a decision about purchasing a new album. If I’m on the fence, the first place I turn to is Youtube. I head there to see if I can dig up a full song but also to get a sense for the band via the video and user comments. These are clues into what it’ll mean for me if I hit ‘purchase’ and become of fan. To be sure, not everyone is an iTunes purchaser and there are ways to get music for free. By why cut off this critical piece for the potential music consumer?

Any thoughts on this? Do you get where the music companies are coming from or is this a another copyright blunder?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Digital Influence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 COMMENTS
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TAGS: Tags: music sharing, Openness & Transparency, youtube

9 Responses to “Video Silence”

James S. Walker Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Hey John,

I don’t think they get it. YouTube is a great
promotional vehicle for them, and it could be bigger.

I don’t like Ads, but I love music. If I were them, I’d work with YouTube to tack Ads from artists on the label to videos. Haven’t seen this kind of targeting yet. (Let me know if I missed it.) If I’m watching the video, I probably would be interested in when their album was coming out, what’s new on their blog or site and/or when their tour is.

By the way, great points on amateur video. Nice post.
John Stauffer Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
@james - thanks for the comment. You’re right and I can’t help but think that Google/YT have failed to develop a plan for contextual targeting on music clips.

We met with the folks from Pandora a few weeks back - those guys are doing brilliant things with music and targeted media.
Nicole Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
John,

I’m very happy you brought up this issue.

The companies had every legal reason to pull down the audio. Even mash-ups or fan covers are “derivative works” and YouTube is considered a digital audio transmission. Especially with Songza, which pulls audio tracks from YouTube, growing in popularity I can see why the record labels were so worried.

From the PR perspective it is unfortunate that some great fan videos came down which will probably hurt fans. Maybe Warner could start inviting fans to upload fan videos onto a Warner Music website and showcase the best ones- that’s what I would do.

Most of the issues that you brought up probably won’t be affected by the pull down. An ad like Sony’s probably paid the artist rights and would not be pulled down. For amateur video producers, there are plenty of sites to find rights-free music like Jamendo or Garage Band where artists have approved the music’s use in videos. Plus, the pull down probably affects videos titled or tagged with artists or song titles. If you are uploading your dance video or Spanish class project that uses Shakira you probably won’t be affected as long as it doesn’t use Shakira in the tags or title.

Amateur artists with out representation may choose to have their fans videos stay up in which case they have only to not contact YouTube for removal. If you need to hear more of a song you can check out the artists’ MySpace. It seems MySpace was the music industries concession for everything else as you can find almost any artist. Jose Gonzalez has a MySpace and you’re right- he’s great! Side note- you might also check out Jorge Drexler.

~Nicole
Winter Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
John,

I think recently had a song pulled from a YouTube video - a song I paid for and I thought “this is crazy. does this mean I can’t play this song out loud at a party or family gathering?”

The reality is that for the vast majority of users (those of us who aren’t doing the Evolution of Dance or Hamster on a Piano), YouTube is just friends sharing with friends. Most videos are playing to a tiny audience.

I hope Nicole’s idea - linking ads with audio in the videos - catches on. Otherwise I’ll be making goofy garage band mixes to use with my videos.

Winter
Filip Matous Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
John:

It is a copyright blunder. No one is going to go through the trouble to get permission to use a song for a little video they want to use on Youtube. It’s the mess of Warner’s business model. If they insist on trying to gain revenue from actual music sales they will fail.

People will pay for convenience, and truthfully the easiest way for me to get my music is even more convenient than iTunes. I just google the album name I want, add “rapidshare” or a similar online service and boom, the album is on my desktop. I pull it into itunes, no need to remove any DRM.

It doesn’t cost me anything; however, it has exposed me to more bands then I would have without these services. Here’s how they get ROI from me:

1. I go to many concerts, even though I am 25 and starting out in life (so I’m pretty poor), I will make sacrifices to go to shows, I always have.
2. I visit the bands myspace or an official bandsite and myspace pays some bands a little each time a song is listened to on their page. They do this because there are ads on myspace so more viewers = the more they can charge for adspace.

Google adds can be found on official bandsites and true fans want to know much about their favorite bands so they will spend time there. A target market (certain bands attract certain types) can attract certain types of ads.

3. Word of mouth. I naturally tell people about bands that I like and this brings even more of an audience. Some people are not as P2P savvy as me, (I’ve been downloading since I was 15 with good ole napster, haha) so they will drive up iTunes sales.

Win/win I think, if Warner stops fighting the future. Plus look back in the past when bands made most of their money with shows, not records.
Nick Schmidt Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Winter, and others

I too had a video removed because of my audio track that I paid for, which is kind of crazy. However, I can see as an artist why I wouldn’t like it. But, I can also see how that is free advertising.

It is an interesting topic.
James williams Says:
August 31st, 2009 at 8:57 pm
The music industry has an archaic and greedy formula for calculating royalties, all the while hiding behind a smokescreen of the starving artist who is being deprived of the royalties they need to create the music.

This is bollocks. Every mainstream artist knows that the largest majority of their revenue comes through touring and merchandising NOT royalites, which go to the large marketing engines and the legal teams that seem to trawl sites like google to remove promotion of their artists.

What they seem to forget is that independent artists are now able to DIY everything from production and marketing much better than the goliaths of the record industry directly via the net. Sites like IODA and Mevio’s Music Alley provide great opportunities to get promoted in the new media space all by themselves.

Artists like Radiohead and Price have marketed and distributed albums successfully without a record label, and still made a packet of money from album sales and touring regardless of the free giveaway.

I don’t know the last time I went into a record store to buy a CD. I always use iTunes, and in iTunes there is no difference between a label and an idependent artist.

The BULK of the music I have purchased are from independent artists - artists that I have heard on a podcast, or via a podsafe music source like IODA promonet.

This type of heavy-handed legal tactic (veiled as a compromise) is a last ditch struggle by record companies to maintain the monopolistic hold on a distribution channel that has been deregulated by the digital age.

It’s time for record companies to reign in the lawyers and look introspectively. There is an immediate need to modify and adapt the way they relate to social media (and do it quickly) or risk becoming like many newspapers, (completely irrelevant and unworkable in a digital economy)
Kevin Powell Says:
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:01 am
I had a video removed from you tube. its ridiculous, we are not making money off these videos, I am just trying to make something for my friends and family.
Music License Says:
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:04 am
I have just decided to use vimeo, they seem to be a little less anal. isn’t there any rights under using the music for art?