Is Downloading Music Via YouTube Illegal?
The biggest problem with digital music distributers these days as well all know are the prices. iTunes is probably one of the most expensive sadly seeing as they have the largest selection and the best quality. But BECAUSE they had this advantage, music vendors forced them to up their prices by threatening to pull their music. What real choice do you have there? Regardless, this has led to people trying to find alternatives to getting their music for cheap and some for nothing at all. How can you go about this legally? There are ways my friend...
Rhapsody's Subscription Service
I looked over our iTunes bill and this is the most affordable and legal way we can continue to get our music. We're planning on switching to Rhapsody's $9.99 a month ($119.88 a year) subscription service which allows users to download as much music as they want for that set price. Considering we purchased over $120 in music only a quarter through this year, this is certainly the most affordable way to do things if you want to be on the less controversial side. Plus you might even find yourself downloading even more music than usual seeing as you'll have a new sort of freedom. Not worrying about over spending because you have a cap. Besides: You really should buy $120 worth of music on there just to make it worth paying for.
YouTube - This is where it gets interesting
This is what I really wrote this post to explain my stance on. YouTube... Oh YouTube... Almost every song you could possibly want is posted in a video somehow on YouTube. However, to make my point much clearer and to give it a fighting chance, we're going to simply stick with Vevo for music because they're directly connected with the distributers. Vevo works with music artists and vendors to help promote their content via sites like YouTube. This means you can in fact listen to complete songs on YouTube free of charge, maybe with a little advertisement here and there. So my question is: If they're so open to allowing people to listen to their music for free on YouTube, why can't we bring it to our computers for offline listening later? It's the same except we have it locally on our hard drives. Regardless, I'll be happy with Rhapsody for now since my parents are willing to pay for it and I'd rather not get into any legal trouble with T-Pain or Drake but what are your thoughts on this? Leave a comment below with your thoughts or argument toward this issue. You can see more at my blog: christhurber.tk
Sign this Twitition to legalize music downloads from Youtube: http://twitition.com/ats2j
Chris Thurber Sep 4, 2010 at 10:02 PM
Reader Comments (8)
i totally agree
Well after being in a band through most of my youth years, and seeing my little indie cd be torrented after release its a weird concept. I did give consent for it to be on myspace, I never gave consent for it to be horded to the public. What reason would I have to go ever pay for a song if I took the online only media?
I have downloaded songs before, and honestly if I didn't have the experience I had with my personal CD I probably wouldn't have this opinion.
Now heres what they should do, Put ads in "free" mp3 downloads. Put a 5-15 second advert before, change the cover art to a brand so they profit from every mp3 downloaded instead of every view.
They could put a whole cd out for free if they put a small ad at the beginning or end of a song.
I find it odd how you're putting ads on a video that you're putting on someone else's site, seems a bit immoral.
@Craig Jone - I honestly just uploaded one episode to a bunch of different sites including my own and I display those ads on my site. Sorry for the inconvenience.
The reason why downloading from YouTube is illegal is simple.
1) It wasn't licensed for anything other than online streaming.
2) They will not get their ad revenue if you download the video.
3) Assuming they set something up for you to download the music, they would still need internet access to dynamically serve advertisements.
I am really surprised you didn't cover that in your article. If you can't at least cover the basics I don't think you have any business writing about the subject. It just hurts your credibility.
Who cares if it's illegal. You download it and listen to it what's the problem? Is somebody checking your computer?
This is stupid!!!! The reason why it's illegal is because your not buying the music. If everyone downloaded music from YouTube. How would artist make money? It's just like downlOafing from limewire.
Fuck it, life's short just download that shit they make too much money anyway, just stay calm and pass the blunt.