YouTube has been testing a new way of combating copyright violations on the site – removing the audio, leaving the video. The result is a wasteland of music videos that are creepily silent.
For some time now the company has been fingerprinting audio tracks and notifying users of infringement when they find a copyrighted song (I received one of these in error, fought it and won). Until recently, the copyright holder was able to choose between having the whole file removed or making revenue off of ads placed on the content.
But now YouTube seems to be just stripping out the audio. Examples: here, here, here. This user-created one is just sad now.
Based on Twitters, a lot of people think something is wrong with their computers. Someone (or more likely some committee) at YouTube made the decision that this was the best user experience possible when a song needed to be stripped from the site. That decision was a bad one.
Thankfully the music industry is always there to do something a little more stupid than they did before to entertain us all.
Thanks for the tip Aniq.
Update: YouTube’s blog post on the subject.
Seems like they are really struggling with copyright problems. The interesting question is how many contributors and consumers this will drive away from YouTube.
Can’t they at least display a message letting users know WHY there’s no audio?
there is one on the landing page for the video, saying “This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders. The audio has been disabled.” But nothing on the embeds.
As long as they make this message clear enough i don’t really see the problem.
Although once the audio is removed there is little to no point leaving the video there.
This certainly leads to a lot of confusion. I see millions of people knocking their computers and crawling under the desk to check if the speakers are plugged in – maybe they should market this feature as a new form of yoga
thats an awesome idea (millions of people!!)
Yes it’s new sport: Geekfit
invented tonight, right here on TC.
Training videos, books and registration for seminars in your city soon available at http://smibs.com (and of course in the TC comments.
wow
What I found. {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/v5CvdhozVo_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”What I found. ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/UrPeZIJBYv”}}}
The audio is being removed manually by the moderators, or do all the videos don’t have audio??
They seem to have some sort of algorithm that can detect the audio signatures.
I uploaded a vid, with no give away in the title, and it got muted as soon as it was up.
They might be searching keywords in the tags?
the audio has been removed from the flv
I actually loaded a video that had this happen. It had a Bryan Adams song on a Muvee Photo/Video slideshow/Music Video.
The Video uploaded fine but when I looked at it it mentioned that the video contained copyright music (which it did, my bad) and I had three (from memory, I deleted the video) options:
1) Disable Audio
2) Replace the Audio and it gave me options to add
3) Dispute the copyright, which from memory mentioned that it would contact the Copyright owners.
HTH
Molly
PS. I redid the video with a more independant musician, Tim Mahoney and actually the song is great and a little longer!
I checked out Tim Mahoney, just for the hell of it, and he really sounds good!
Did you get his permition or what?
Found him on Animoto, so assumed he was cool with it.
If YouTube was smart they would splinter off from google and move their offices and all of their servers offshore and tell the music industry to suck it.
SUBTITLES!!!!!!!!! hahaha
TechCrunch – Please block the spam from gorgehu1
There is something seriously wrong with the music industry. What they don’t get, is that user generated videos give their bands coverage!
I never heard of 3 Doors Down before I saw an AMV on youtube with their music.
They should have turned this into profit, instead they are.
Well, at least now more independent musicians will be heard on YouTube, and maybe get some good coverage. I guess it’s not all bad
I totally agree!
Youtube is a great way of getting to know an artist better. And clicking further to find more of them, so at the end you can decide what to buy.
At least that is how it works for me. I did not buy music in years, but because of Youtube I bought 3 dvd’s in a few weeks time.
This is stupid. Listening to Music on You Tube is one the main reasons why people using it.
It’s just another try from the poor music industry to get something back what they have lost the first time through napster.
And when You Tube will remain the only video platform blocking the audio, the user will switch to a another one, at least for listening/watching to music.
Bad Deal!
No, you’re stupid. And so is this entire sub-culture of arguments about the music industry… it’s so beleaguered and full of holes. Your comment is the perfect example of what is wrong with the world right now.
What do you do for a living? Do you want to become rich? What if you started becoming wildly successful and then all of a sudden a couple college kids started illegally cutting into your profits? Ok, you can deal with that a little… now let’s say those same kids shared their tactics with the whole world and all of a sudden your profits started to tank. Would you be such a freedom fighter then, I wonder?? (just because you are mega-rich doesn’t mean you should start giving your product away for free… just stop for second and realize how mother fucking retarded that sounds).
Everyone want’s free shit… and that’s all your argument boils down to. Knock off the bullshit about the music industry being stupid for this, that, or the other thing and simply realize that you’re cheap and you, like so many other lazy idiots before you, want something for nothing. (Unless you honestly believe that you are vesting your passion into real and lasting change for the better of humanity… in which case you are a delusional schizophrenic who is in desperate need of medical attention.)
p.s. Because of you, puppies die.
So what you are saying, we should ban online radio’s, or all the radio stations alltogether?
Monty never mentioned any money making schemes, what are you going on about?
I thought music was about being heard? My bad.
Most people are not “cutting into the profit”. Listening to a song on YouTube is not making the musician lose money. And making videos with someones music as the best kind of publicity for the musician.
@Matt don’t be such an up tight douche
@Matt:
i never mentioned that i wouldn’t pay for music and that it should be free for all. it’s the opposite, i definitely do pay. The willingness to pay for music exists and people pays for it. Apple was smart enough to build a product where you can buy songs and albums from your favorite bands very easily. But didn’t you wonder why Apple and not the big music industry has built this product?
It’s definitely a bad trade off for both, You Tube and the music industry. You Tube will lose attractiveness and artists will lose a useful way to increase their popularity. They should better think about a solution which brings a win/win situation for both parties, instead ripping off the audio from the music videos, which couldn’t be good at all. What would the “evolution of dance” video look like without music? Come on, this can’t seriously be a good deal.
The music industry totally overslept at the end of the 90’s what kind of possibilities the internet would open to them. They honestly thought that the internet is something like a temporary fashion phenomenon. Google it, you can find a bunch of articles how they underestimated the impact of the internet theretimes. But obviously it wasn’t a temporary fashion phenomenon and till now they suffer.
@Matt -
Of course, we should totally overlook the fact that the MUSICIANS, who make all this possible in the first place, get NOTHING from the RIAA and the labels distribution of their music.
They might as well give it away for free, for all they get from the sales. It’s all the other stuff that makes money for the artist. Sales of the recordings only makes money for the RIAA and the labels.
Total rip off…Tut
http://garfield...usgarfield.net/
Now THAT is a funny comment!
So, are the stripping the audio from the file, or just disabling the audio from streaming?
If you cannot use music you have bought in your homemade vids, why bother buying music? A pity music cannot be downloaded free of charge online…lol.
Google should start putting together a library of music it has rights to (exclusive or non-exclusive) for free use in Youtube videos. Musicians and music companies who do not get with the program should be permanently banned and denied Google traffic.
it actually has made that list.
After you are notified that the video on your music is copyrighted, it gives you the choice of adding one of the songs it has rights to.
It’s a step in the right direction.
I just commented on this on my blog: “Ouch. This will really hurt. Everyone. The amateur film makers, the artists, Youtube, us – the users. Yes, sure, I know: synchronization [the use of music in a public audio-visual production] is subject to a license by the writer, publisher, label, artist (and another dozen of parties), no matter how small the use. That’s the law.
BUT: where will this by-the-book implementation of these laws lead us? The answer is: criminalization.
Youtube (i.e. Google) will be virtually destroying 10s of millions of videos that millions of users have created and uploaded. I understand why Youtube would comply with demands for this, but this is really a bummer – would it not make sense for the music (publishing) industry to instead provide a non-commercial LICENSE for UGC content, and in return get traffic, referrals and shares of ad revenues? Would it not make sense for such a license to be created NOW rather then in 3 years?
Another instance of music industry control obsession that just makes you want to scream if you haven’t lived under a rock for the past 5 years…”
Media Futurist: http://tinyurl.com/9orh3o
I wondered why they just pulled my 2yr old youtube video that had a snippet from a Scorpions song.
I guess they Rocked me like a Hurricane =/
pass by! i have a YouTube account but haven’t post a video yet.
I think it’s time the mainstream public switched to an off-shores YouTube, where the same laws don’t apply.
I hope bands can see that signing up with the recording industry going forward is a path to suicide. The RIAA is the most hated organization in America. As the body of independent music grows people will surely switch to listening it. The RIAA can take their music, DRM it to the hilt and throw away the keys – perfect copy protection!
“The RIAA is the most hated organization in America.”
Only by the small minority of tech-geeks and people who have been on the wrong end of one of their extortion rackets.
Sadly, most people have absolutely NO IDEA what the RIAA is doing, and will continue to buy music by RIAA labels.
This move by YouTube is wonderful – it draws a lot of attention to the situation in a way that affects the average person more directly.
“The RIAA is the most hated organization in America.”
…you know the kkk, big tobacco, and the republican party are still around, right?
It’s only our culture after all. You can’t weigh that against corporate profits.
ScrewYoUTube :/
This might be a good opportunity for Indie artists. My thoughts here http://blogs.gn...nd-of-the-deaf/
and at the same time Apple is removing DRM so you can make CDs and such. Why is Google going backwards?
For this time i completely agree with you. First Youtube need to just erase all video that are copyrighted and not just erase audio.
The industry is so in war against piracy that they forget to entertain us.
Kevin
http://www.unbl...kfacebook2.info
I have a 13yr old daughter and a 11yr old daughter and they have grown up using YouTube to listen/find music like we use to do for with the Radio. They are constantly on Youtube watching music videos, often fan created because they like the video better then the record labels version. This is going to have a big impact on them.
My guess is that your comment/arguement supports what YouTube/Record Industry did. You didn’t mention if when they find something they like they then do and buy it?
Does anybody know if it’s gonna spread ?
Like on blogspot for example ?
This is so sad. A few days ago, I tried to watch the most viewed video of Disney’s “A Whole New World”, and what did I find? The classic song was audioswapped. http://pl.youtu...h?v=YRi20cWMYOM . Sigh.
Doesn’t Disney have a copyright on the Aladdin video? So why can you still see the video on youtube?
Why not download YouTube Music by YouTube music downloader?
YouTube Music Downloader
This will really hurt the YouTube user experience.
I noticed this yesterday and was a little baffled at first since the video still plays. At least before, they would just disable the entire video so you couldn’t even search for it, which seems to make a lot more sense.
I’ve had a few videos of my own taken down and it’s very annoying. One video just used a song as a background soundtrack. Although I understand the legal aspect, all I was doing was basically promoting this artist’s music for them for free. Plenty of people in the comments would ask what the name of the song was because they liked it but had never heard of it before and wanted to buy it in iTunes. Win/Win for everyone in my opinion.
Now it seems like a lot of YouTube users that go there to listen to and find new music will be pissed and will jump ship for smaller competitor sites that still have these videos/songs available. This is definitely not the best way to go IMO.
It’s a sad day for all of the great videos that are affected by this; however, licensing stock music for use in YouTube videos and other productions had become affordable for all, and this is the purpose of AudioMicro, to help connect unknown artists with micro video producers, for an affordable fee. It would have been nice if YouTube had provided users with a notice. Purchasing Royalty Free Stock Music will prevent any take downs. Sorry for the link here, but I can’t help but point you to our library of over 12,000+ tracks, all available from $1 each for use in any creative audio-visual project – http://www.AudioMicro.com
If you bump into a muted video on youtube, post this comment:
‘We love music! We can’t stand by silently while the music industry continues its decades-long effort to lock up our culture! If you think that it sucks that audio had to be disabled here BOYCOTT MUSIC INDUSTRY!
- Only buy audio-cds second-hand from now on (Use amazon’s second-hand section or ebay from apparently private persons)
- Don’t download from online music stores anymore
- Support self-marketing bands
- Spread this message here on every muted video you encounter’
Isn’t YouTube muting music helping this campaign by not making you listen to music from the Big Bad Music Industry?
WTF… music on youtube is mono and crappy sound anyways…
I myself have had friends tell me “Hey check out this song, it’s good” so I go on youtube, listen to it, and if I like it go to itunes and purchase it (because 320kbps in stereo is about 100x better than youtube music)
I know it’s netted the music industry more than not having it in my case and I’m sure in many others.
I hope the RIAA wakes up one day and realizes they are in fact still making a whole lot of money.
that’s alsome
iam from new york city ok:)
A day will come when all the bullshit will be wiped off the ass of the industry and it will be left with nothing but(t) it’s empty, bare ass…
Now don’t get me wrong! I love artists. I am an artist myself, but lets face it, the copyright thing has gone far too far and it aint right.
Whatever happened to good old justice? It’s been perved into a conspiracy starting with a capital © and I am not happy about that. And I know that there are a lot of other people who are not happy about that.
So let’s screw the big © one day at a time!
So why can you still see the video on youtube?
Dude, quit spamming your site, seriously. We’ve had it with you.