YouTube Mutes Copyrighted Music
So, I got this video of a cat waiting for a prawn, which he never gets. It’s a metaphor for life, and destiny. And density. I put a Cure song over it to cover for the paucity of the content. Now, however, it seems that Warner has canoodled YouTube into scanning the track against their music and then muting it. But it’s a 20 second video of a cat which like three people are going to watch, featuring back catalog music. I can understand Warner demanding a share of that ad revenue, or demanding a free ad with a link to that song on iTunes, but I fail to see how muting the song makes any business sense. It’s effectively a free ad, there’s a direct advertising channel built in, but instead all you get is silence. I don’t know when the music business became more about suppression that expression, but that business model has changed.
Wow, I’ve grown up, and it’s all because of Barack Obama. Earlier I’d be like ‘RAWR, PFFFTT free music 4evors’. However, at this point the music industry has alienated me so much that I haven’t bought a meatspace CD in, uh, I think I bought someone a Pink Floyd birthday present in September. I haven’t bought a CD for myself since… since I was in high school, so about 10 years ago (wtf?). At that point I used to spend like 110% of my disposable income on CDs, but now I don’t. Partly because the companies didn’t sell me a service I could use, and also because I think they’re assholes and sue kids for millions of dollars.
What I would and have paid for are Internet streaming libraries like Rhapsody or last.fm. Quite happy to pay a monthly sub to have access to so much new music. I’m not a kid anymore and I don’t devote as much time and energy to downloading and finding stuff, so I will pay for a service that, uh, serves me. My ideal situ is an HSPA iPod. That is, an iPod which rather than storing 5,000 songs streams a library of 5 million off a server somewhere. That is, I no longer store or maintain the music files, I just have the interface and the Internet connection. For that I would certainly pay.
If you’re curious as to how the song recog technology works, you can just dial 389 on a Dialog phone, hold the phone up to the music for 15 seconds and it’ll SMS you the artist and name. I’m listening to last.fm right now and it told me I was listening to Trying by Nuspirit Helsinki. Which I’ve never heard of. It ends up costing about Rs 20, and I work for the company btw. But it shows that the recognition software must be really efficient and scalable. So this shit is happening. I, however, think it has more potential for selling music than suppressing it.
But returning to point, the YouTube/Warner policy of blocking people using music entirely is both socially noxious and business dumb. I don’t get why people can’t share and have fun with music, this is a natural tendency. Rather than trying to mute it, business should see an opportunity and get paid for helping people, rather than getting not paid for hurting them. Put a link to a Cure download or concert tickets next to my stupid video. I don’t care. Maybe I’ll buy something. As it is I a) hate you and b) am taking my business elsewhere.
This is highly dubious. Miss Travel is a travel/social networking site that connects ‘Generous’ and ‘Attractive’ travelers. To, like, travel together, I guess. It all seems a bit like arranged prostitution and trafficking. This is part of a broader online trend to connect rich men to younger, attractive women. Sites like 
Sri Lankan domestics never say anything, they just stop coming. My maid just stopped coming and when I finally pressed her she said I needed to get a washing machine. I was hoping to ride this one out, but I’ve run out of underwear and I have no choice. I finally caved and bought a washing machine, from 
There’s nothing wrong with pornography, but there’s a lot wrong with porn. Nothing wrong with watching people have sex, but too often that sex is brutal, senseless and coerced. I mean how many couples are coming on each others faces every day? Hence, philosopher king Alain de Botton – after calling for a 
Sri Lanka is going to start offer 
fabulous choice of music for the – i love the cure and “the love cats”. I did a video of my infant daughter dancing to “just like heaven” on fb
re the music industry – they have their heads up their collective arses. they seem to have no desire to change their business model and are dying as a result and instead of having an operation to make them better stick to the original plan.
i think you are on to something about the hspa ipod but without DRM- nokia are basically trying this out with their new phones with a service called “Comes with Music”. There is a good discussion on this at ars technica http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071204-nokias-unlimited-comes-with-music-plan-misses-the-boat-due-to-drm.html
Streaming radio on your mobile with an unlimited data service is a possibility even now.
Tried a few java apps for it, costs about 20 rs for less than a minute of audio with my mangy GPRS connection.
Haha! Right on, man.
And that cat is just…. SHO ADORABLE, I could just.. roll it up, and.. AND EAT IT! ^.^
It’s called YouTube Video Identification Beta. It’s still in a Beta phase, and is designed to scan the meta info on uploaded content. It scans for copyrighted music, images and video.
Once content has been identified, the copyright holder, in most cases big names like Warner Bros, Universal Music Group etc.., are then allowed to do as they please. They are given 3 options.
1. Block the content – in your case only the audio is blocked as opposed to the full video being taken down for infringement.
2. Copyright holder can run a 350X350 banner ad on your video page and also gain access to your view counts and who links to the video.
3. Choose to leave the video as is because it brings value to the original copyrighted work.
As you know I make a few cricket videos in my free time. Universal has allowed several of my montages to remain up.