You Don't Know

Apparently, I've never understood the purpose of music videos. I always thought of them as a form of commercial that advertises a song or an album or a band on television (indeed, weren't they even called "promotional films" at one time or another?). While some bands would compile their videos onto a VHS tape or DVD for sale, most did not. Thus, most music videos that have been produced in the last 30 or so years have not been available to the public for personal ownership. It is only in the last year or so, with the music companies selling copies of videos on iTunes that this approach to music videos has changed. Now, all of a sudden, they are as much of a commodity as the single itself.

I mention this because the RIAA has begun suing people who submit videos to YouTube. Not only are they suing those who post the official music videos, but they are now also suing anyone who uses an RIAA song as background music of a poster's own video creation.

This is just stupid, as most of the RIAA's anti-consumer strategies of late have been. I can't imagine why any band (or even their record companies) would be opposed to what amounts to free advertising. There may be some cases where the use of a song is done in a way that is not flattering to the band, but I think that such situations are rare. Most of the time, the amateur filmmaker has chosen the song because he likes it or because it fits nicely with the visual content of the film.

Since most of the videos on YouTube are posted without any expectation of financial gain (the site itself is hemorraging money and may go out of business in the next few months), what these filmmakers are doing cannot be called piracy. By definition, piracy means that the pirate is selling the pirated material for monetary gain. That is not happening here. Once again, we have the greedy RIAA placing irrational restrictions on what people can do with their music in an attempt to squeeze every last penny from consumers.