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.'"

Wonder what it would take to make the *AA happy?

[zappepcs]

FTFA: "NEW YORK (Billboard) - As the recording industry tries to block file trading of songs across peer-to-peer networks, blogs and other viral distribution channels, the major labels suddenly have a whole new piracy concern: music videos."

Interestingly, every new and (arguably) useful tool on the Internet seems to somehow allow people to pirate the *AA's protected content. Somewhere in all that, somebody, group, or even countries should be hitting the *AA et al with the clue stick.... hard! Not that I think if they did get a clue it would make anything cheaper or easier for anyone that wants to use their content.

Instead of inventing licensing models that make sense, they simply seem to be trying to stop all use of their content.

Personally, I think it would be sort of sucky for a few months, but if everyone just stopped buying music and videos from *AA affiliated musicians, perhaps the hint would work. Try http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/ [magnetbox.com] for music that they don't benefit from. See if buying music they don't get paid for makes them any happier?

I'd buy the real thing...If it was available.

[meburke]

Two options:

I'd love to be able to buy vcd/dvd video albums at a reasonable price. Particularly if I can get them locally and don't have to play them on my zone-free DVD player.

(There was, back in 1986, a jukebox/video I saw in some bars. Pick your song/album, and the video showed on the screen. I want one!)

Same for an iTunes-type service. I'd gladly pay to download good videos from a legitimate site. Hell, I'd pay to download good videos from an illegitimate site since the record industry isn't meeting my customer demands.

However, the videos on Google Video, and YouTube are mostly JUNK! I want artist-approved videos, not crappy, half-baked attempts at self-agrandizement.

Mike

Re:Pay?? For a music video??

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, these are quite valuable in the DJ market. Lots of clubs are getting to DJing with music videos, and they're not cheap.

Check http://www.promoonly.com/video/ [promoonly.com] for info.

commercial market? ha!

[llZENll]

"$3.7 million in three months"

This amount isn't even close to paying for the videos themselves, each video today costs .5-10M to produce (http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/toptens/musicvideo s/musicvideos.html).