YouTube to Offer Every Music Video Ever Created?

Klaidas writes "BBC reports that YouTube is aiming to have every music video ever created within 18 months and offer them free of charge to its users
"Right now we're trying to very quickly determine how and what the model is to distribute this content and we're very aggressive in assisting the labels in trying to get the content on to YouTube," said Mr Chen."

Re:It should work great

[jandrese]

It's trivially easy to download the videos off of Youtube. That's one thing that makes it great, even people still stuck on modems can use it. There's even a Firefox Plugin [videodownloader.net] to let you download the videos.

100 Awesome Music Videos Lives!

[Sargent1]

Some time ago, Pitchfork did 100 Awesome Music Videos [pitchforkmedia.com], with one of their criteria being that the videos be available on YouTube. Those videos occasionally get yanked, as I discovered when I started doing something similar every Friday [granades.com]. I wouldn't mind if YouTube could present those legally.

MTV has already done it... quietly...

[7grain]

Check out http://www.mtv.com/overdrive [mtv.com]

It's pretty good. Thousands of videos. Quality is as good as what you usually find on YouTube.

Not sure why nobody knows about this. I mean, at 37, I'm now outside MTV's target demographic (but I was 14 when I GOT MY MTV in 1983, the weekend that the Thriller video was released in it's 14-minute glory.)

But anyway, since MY generation was the one that actually watched videos on MTV for about 6 hours a day instead of listening to the radio, I'd think they'd find a way to market this to the 30-45 year age groups. *shrug*

Re:Free? RIAA will never allow it

[Threni]

> How does it work with MTV

Presumably the way it worked with radio - bribery via drugs, sex, money and threats of violence. Allegedly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola [wikipedia.org]

Re:MTV has already done it... quietly...

[mistigri]

For Unix and Linux users :

From MTV Overdrive :

"Detecting OS...
In order to offer a broad selection of full-length music videos on-demand and free of charge, MTV Overdrive uses Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM) to protect videos from unauthorized re-distribution.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's Windows Media Player Plug-in for Unix does not support Windows DRM. If DRM support becomes available, MTV will develop a version of MTV Overdrive that works for your operating system."

Re:Free? RIAA will never allow it

[OrangeTide]

I assumed people paid MTV to show their crappy music videos. The music videos were more of an advertising ploy than anything, used to promote CD/record sales. The bands almost always lip-synced to their own songs in the videos, because it's hard to sing normally while jumping off buildings or chasing one another with chainsaws. It's hard to get decent quality audio outside of a sound studio. The music always comes first in a music video, and nearly without exception you could discard the video part and still have something good. Which is why we bought CDs instead of VHS/LaserDisc/DVDs of the bands we saw on MTV.

fyi - MTV2 still shows videos, but not all cable providers have MTV2. Most videos are pretty boring compared to the wild stuff of the 80s and 90s.
 

Re:My first downloads

[Zone-MR]

Poundcake, Van Halen [youtube.com]
Tease Me, Please Me - Scorpions [youtube.com]
Crazy Cool - Paula Abdul [youtube.com]

Remind me what you need to wait for?

Re:Free? RIAA will never allow it

[kthejoker]

Actually, MTV solicits all videos, and they play what they want - which of course just happens to be all the hitmakers because that drives the advertising dollars / hype factory.

As a former employee of MTV, I can say unequivocably that nobody at MTV gets paid to show this video over that video. But there is a lot of pressure to, say, "show this new artist video or we won't give you an exclusive interview with Madonna/Ludacris/Green Day." There is a lot of bartering more than outright payola. Influence for influence.

And, yes, MTV will pay any artist $1 for the right to use their music in the background of their shows in perpetuity forever and ever et cetera et cetera. A lot of bands take that deal; bigger names than I would have thought, especially in the metal/indie world. It's not really selling out, but it's definitely a validation of the system.

Re:Free? RIAA will never allow it

[soupdevil]

A wild-ass guess gets marked informative?

Until very recently, a music video was a promotional item, part of the hype machine to sell singles, albums, and concert tickets. It was basically a commercial for the song, and there were no licensing costs. Anyone who wanted to play the video (thus providing free publicity) were welcome to do so.

Now the labels see the possibility of licensing the content online, and are starting to view vids as a potential revenue stream, one that will not require them to pay any royalties to artists or directors. The costs of making a video are extracted from the artist's earnings as a promotional expense, and most artists have nothing in their contract to allow them to video profits. The same goes for film directors, who sign away all creative ownership in order to make music videos, which are basically the only way to make a creative short film with any sort of budget these days.

Re:censored ??

[Doctor Faustus]

i never understood why videos on the various video channels are censored so heavily... i want to see videos without t-shirts being blurred out

The t-shirts are blurred when they have a corporate logo on them. MTV doesn't want to run product placement advertising without being paid for it.

Re:How's this for an idea?

[Zakabog]

A lot of bands I listened to on college radio became huge after their music video came out. None of them have half naked dancing women though. You're probably referring to rap videos. That's really the record companies way of showing the rapper "Look how good we treat you, half naked dancing women all around you for your music vide, we're letting you drive these nice cars, come make us more money while we pay you hardly anything." The bands I listen to become big because all the teenagers watch TRL or have it on in the background, and the record companies will pay to have the video shown on TRL, then all the teenagers fall in love with it and it's soon in the #1 spot and a band I used to go see at a small bar in Brooklyn for $10 is now on all the worst commercial radio stations and they're playing sold out shows in huge theaters where it costs $50 a ticket.

Re:Free? RIAA will never allow it

[soupdevil]

Ultimately the band pays. If the label decides to promote the album, they usually provide a video budget that does not come out of the artists' advance. But occasionally, an artist will feel the need to produce a video the label doesn't want, or a more expensive video than the label will approve. That money has to come directly out of the artist's pocket, rather than out of their future earnings.

(I spent much of the last five years working on music videos.)

Re:Free? RIAA will never allow it

[marshmeli]

Not as much as you think. I work for MTVN. The video programmers use the application I develop. They choose the videos they want to air when they want to air for the most part. They may pay us so we have a copy of the video, but those people air what they want, when they want too. We do pay licensing fees for using the songs in our shows though. The companies know if their video is on MTV (when there is an actual video on) they will get tons of interest, there is no need for us to pay for them.

Use Firefox with videodownloader + VLC

[extract]

All you need to rip videos from YouTube is Firefox with Videodownloader 2.0 extension and VLC. Go the the page on YouTube with the desired video, click on the videodownloader button and click download. You can play the saved .FLV file in VLC, it can also convert it to eg. .MP4. If the destination is your iPod, convert in high quality, drag the .MP4 into iTunes, right-click on the .MP4 and choose convert to iPod. Voila, YouTube vids on your iPod.

Re:RIAA will love it

[huhmz]

Actually I just found VH-1 while flipping through the badjillions of cable channels and I noticed that is actually kind of like how MTV used to be in the 90's when I grew up. Playing music for several hours on end. And not just Britney and that other whats-her-face that is her slutty(ier) counterpart. They were playing Radiohead and The Clash. Maybe Im just caught it at a good hour I don't know.