Viral Music Videos A Problem For RIAA 182
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.'"
proof the RIAA is insane (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Viral sites are on the rise for this very reason! (Score:4, Insightful)
Heck... It's getting easier to build sites with the ability to share content... Mtrx.net (see my sig) can share videos/images/music... But I've only turned on images and I'm not taking customers. But if I did, it would be a full time job for several people to scan thousands of uploads for copyrighted content... Which is a good reason not to take new people yet... Point being, the companies that have the most to lose will end up footing the bill (and because of this they will also keep trying to sue the pants off little guys when their customers post copyrighted content to their subsites)
The music industry is never happy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Pay?? For a music video?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
So, $3.7 million in three months... (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Dear **AA: (Score:3, Insightful)
Big Corporate Media (Score:3, Insightful)
As a musician, I think that's a big crock of shit.
That said, I keep the RIAA off my back the old fashioned way-- I rip my friends' CDs rather than download off the net, and similarly share the wealth off-line. Not like I could've bought the Beatles' albums in the Apple Store anyway. And Sir McCartney certainly doesn't need it, if he even sees royalties from those sales anymore. Perhaps it's time to drop the copyright timelimits, yeah?
Ultimately, it's increasingly clear that these incestuous corporate associations not only don't have the best interests of the emerging world culture at heart, but are an active enemy to both their customers and the future of the very industry they claim to represent. I know the list of evil organizations in the world is getting over-long at this point, but they really do need to be stopped, along with all the other fucks out there wrecking civilization for everyone else.
I wonder if strong leadership and extensive organization could effect the degree of change the world needs before everything really goes to hell...
Futility. (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, the harder they try, the more they're just going to end up pissing off their ever-dwindling base of consumers. Right or wrong and for better or worse, it's reality.
(The above concept applies to the dumb-fsking war on terrorism, too, but I won't even begin ranting about that horrorshow.)
Re:proof the RIAA is insane - Every Note (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm certain that the final goal of the RIAA is to own every note in the musical scale, and collect a payment for every time any of those notes are played.
Re:proof the RIAA is ISN'T insane (Score:2, Insightful)
The RIAA has a problem with everything. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe then, the RIAA will stop whining.
The real RIAA fear: teens get bored with music (Score:4, Insightful)
they don't own our culture (Score:5, Insightful)
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
retards (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:proof the RIAA is ISN'T insane (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
How long before RIAA wants you to license your ear (Score:3, Insightful)
Tips for selling a mass product (Score:3, Insightful)
It can be something as simple as a movie trailer or a music video or even an ad block (latter least effective, since people know the final goal is to trick them into buying something).
Doesn't RIAA realize this? Yes it does. But what you don't realize is that RIAA wants control. Viral marketing is good if RIAA creates it, if people start it themselves, it's bad.
If channels exist for commercial videos to be spread virally, they can be used to easily spread non-commercial non-RIAA production as well. That would mean less people buy RIAA product, more people learn about independent productions.
This can spell serious trouble for RIAA. This is why their first goal is closing the entire channel and not just filtering out their content.
Re:Dear **AA: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You lot will go to any length to defend piratin (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason the copyright law sucks is because the companies bought it that way. They requested that feature specifically, and paid for it. For good measure, in Eldred v Ashcroft, they essentially bought the right to buy any kind of copyright law they want -- without having to demonstrate that it fulfills the Constitutional mandate (promoting science & useful arts).
The problem with copyright law is that it more-or-less is writen by the companies. So it's not possible to just complain about one.
you're forgetting a group of people (Score:3, Insightful)
interestingly enough, also the prime demographic for the culture brokers
so that's the warzone
frankly, anyone over 21 is too rich and too undermotivated to matter anymore
the corporations can spend trillions in advanced r&d, but if they ask for money, and the teenager doesn't have it (which is the case 99% of the time)
then take a wild guess what is going to happen next