From today, YouTube wants you to pay
mainThe barriers are starting to go up on free music videos.
Google-owned Youtube has launched a paid-for subscription service that cuts out the ads and promises to do other clever things. It’s called Music Key.
The stated aim is to crush Spotify.
The ultimate aim is to make you pay for everything. And to make Google even richer and more omnipotent.
Report here. Product test here:
This could be the end of civilisation as we know it. Alternately, it could be the beginning of a revitalised music business.
I’m glad about this. I think we will cherish what we listen to even more. A wise move. YouTube is banned in Germany.
I disagree with the idea that this is a positive move. Much of the classical music (and also jazz) on YouTube is from recordings that may have once been commercial releases, but are now out of print and unavailable. So kindly collectors upload the music to YouTube so that it will be available to the rest of us and we will not have to pay a fortune for used LPs on eBay. YouTube already has a system that scans every upload to determine if it contains music that is currently in commercial release. If the scan is “positive,” YouTube offers us the opportunity to buy the music on MP3 from Google or other sources — and the music cannot be downloaded from the YouTube video. But the big issue is: Who gets the money? It would be okay if the greater share of it went to the artists and the composers, but of course it doesn’t and it won’t. Why should we assume that Google is going to be any more generous than Spotify and iTunes? Google should content itself with making money via all the commercials and advertising that appears on YouTube. Once they charge for watching YouTube will lose the appeal it has as a “free” site. Everyone knows that on the internet you cannot charge for things that once were free.
Just because something is out of print and unavailable does not mean that its copyright has expired.
Music quality on UTube is currently total crap at 92 kbit/s on average which is barely good enough for speech. If you pay for that, you must be crazy. No way.