Greets friends. I spent the morning studying more blogs and articles about the Youtube copyright issues, videos and accounts and cane up with interesting info.
Prince and Van Morrison Zero Tolerance for YouTube Videos
Prince and Van Morrison have a zero tolerance policy and hired a company called “Web Sheriff” http://www.websheriff.com/websheriff/ to police unauthorized videos on Youtube and get videos and maybe even accounts deleted.
On the Wikepedia page, Web Sheriff claims that CD sales were better than ever since the pulling down of these videos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Sheriff#cite_note-WS_guardian-12
Web Sheriff, this is bullshit. Sales were better? Better as compared to what?
D’oh #1: If you are comparing an artists sales to that of his last CD, you have to factor in that the presence of the videos you deleted could have in fact contributed to the new sales. Logic strikes again.
D’oh #2: I searched on Youtube for “Prince Purple Rain” a few years later the alleged “web sheriff sweep” and found 5012 related videos to “Prince Purple Rain”. Wow you guys did a great job of really cleaning up the unauthorized videos. 🙂
D’oh #3: Compared to artists who don’t have stuff removed? Do many artists who have stuff up on YT for free sell better or worse than those whom you have helped with your service? The point is, we DON’T KNOW if Van Morrison is selling more than people who are freely all over YouTube.
Van Morrison and Prince pay you guys, so of course you’ll say they are getting their money’s worth. They are your clients!
Fighting Mother Nature and Losing
Two “mother nature” issues come to mind. Man usually loses battles with nature.
It looks like eliminating one copyright violator is akin to stepping on one stray roach when 10,000 are lurking behind the stove of each apartment in an infested building. And, weeds which are fragile and weak will bust their way up and grow through concrete. Nature wins over man.
With 200,000 videos uploaded daily, and about 300 MILLION youtube accounts, do you really think that even eliminating 1, 1000 or even 10,000 accounts will put a dent in the copyright issue? The sheer numbers show the impossibility of your endeavors.
Copyrighted material getting uploaded to YT is like weeds growing. There is no stopping it. There’s no stopping newcomers and those who don’t know the rules.
If I get suspended today, I could open up 100 accounts on YT tomorrow and put videos up again. It’s like the 1977 New York blackout. People can walk into stores and take stuff (looting) because no one can stop them.
And, if Youtube is losing $470 million a year (according to Credit-Suisse) the whole thing is this weird, entertaining losing game.
http://www.slate.com/id/2216162/?GT1=38001
As the artilce says at the end, “YouTube and its fellow user-contributed sites really did change the world. Too bad nobody could find a way to pay for it.”
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According to Wiki Answers, here are some interesting (but unfounded) stats:
Total number of YouTube videos — over 120,000,000
Number of videos uploaded per day — about 200,000
Time required to see all the videos — over 600 years
Number of videos watched daily — over 200,000,000
Amount of content uploaded every minute — 13 hours
Number of accounts on YouTube — over 300,000,000
Percentage of videos violating copyright — over 12%
The top categories of uploaded videos — music 20%,
entertainment 15%, people/blogs 14%, comedy 13%
sports 7%, educational 6%, automotive 5%, film 5%
The source of videos — amateur 80%, professional
(meaning “partners”) 15%, commercial/corporate 5%
Top countries uploading videos — United States 35%,
United Kingdom 7%, Philippines 4%, all of the these
countries have around 3%: Australia, Brazil, Canada,
France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Turkey
Interesting…”Purple Rain” is what got Naudo kicked the first time around…
I followed your links there with interest, it’s no suprise that Youtube’s running costs are greater than their advertising revenue – but, I expect that the cost of serving these videos will drop dramatically over the years as technology and infrastructure improves, so they might break even…but as to increasing advertising revenue on youtube…hmmm. How many advertisers want to put an advert on some home video of one kid biting another kid’s finger?
Nup, copyright, youtube, covers, weeds & roaches – what the world needs is to forget about the lonely world of ipods, isolating themselves in home theatre dungeons watching and listening to over-mixed music – and reunite themselves with their fellow man, enjoying living breathing live music in a social environment.
Nobody ever got rich being paid by the hour, but is that what it is all about?
JAW