February 7, 2011 One Rocket I Hope Never Takes Off
The latest version of MP3 Rocket (a media downloading app) now allows you to download YouTube videos as mp3s, so you can listen to that new Lady Gaga single whenever you want. MP3 Rocket claims this isn’t breaking any copyright laws, because their software is to be used only for “time-shifting, personal, private, non-commercial use”, which cites the same ruling that video tape and VCR manufacturers use to make home-recording of TV shows legal.
Huh?
The first argument that should pop into everyone’s head is that YouTube videos don’t air only once, on Monday nights at 7pm Est / 6pm Central… YouTube already provides the convenience of “time-shifting” because you can ALREADY watch or listen to the video whenever you want, as many times as you want.
The idea that I need to “record” a YouTube video so that I can watch or listen to it later with the convenience of not typing in a URL is absurd.
Why Do I Even Care?
MP3 Rocket landed on my radar because I, and the two dozen artists signed to my label, DFTBA* Records (*Don’t Forget To Be Awesome), make our livelihood from YouTube. Every musician we work with is a super star on the video sharing site, where we rely on connecting with fans on a personal level through vlogs and music videos to drive sales of CDs, digital downloads and physical merchandise.
To a smaller extent, we also rely on our monthly AdSense checks, which come from being a YouTube Partner. YouTube Partners have special agreements which allow placements of ads on top of and next to our videos, earning the lion’s share of AdSense revenue on those ads. The more views we receive each month, the larger the AdSense check.
By downloading the content of a monetized YouTube video, and allowing users to play it over and over again outside of YouTube, MP3 Rocket deprives us of those views, and by result, the AdSense money we would have earned from those views.
But I’m Not Worried, Yet.
For as long as there has been a YouTube, there have been YouTube downloaders. They used to be browser-based, you’d go to some site hosted internationally (to escape any US federal copyright laws), you’d enter a YouTube URL, and then the site would extract a shitty .mov version of the video located at that YouTube URL. These were always so low quality though, that I don’t think anyone bothered trying to build a music collection this way. We all talk about the decline of music quality with the birth of the mp3, but seriously, NO ONE can listen to music at 96kbps.
The aspect that does cause me some concern though is the continued and …celebrated, even, disregard for copyright and artist’s intent. When I uploaded my latest music video, I did not intend for it to be downloaded and listened to in that format, the audio is tied to the visuals, and differs from the album version of the track available for sale.
It’s not all MP3 Rocket’s fault though. When music “fans” would rather listen to an inferior ripped mp3 from a YouTube video than pay less than a buck for a high-quality, intent-intact copy of the song, there’s something wrong with the way that artist is connecting with his or her fans. Luckily, my artists and I have the best fans in the world, and as I said above, I’m not worried. Yet.
—
Alan Lastufka is the President and co-founder of DFTBA Records. His label was named Best Online Music Label of the Year by Mashable in its first full year of operation.
DFTBA is an initialism for “Don’t Forget To Be Awesome”.
Lastufka can also be emailed (alan@dftba.com) or followed on twitter (@AlanDistro).
Reader Comments (11)
Completely agree with you, Alan. I have the utmost respect for you and your amazing label and hope that this terrible service gets shut down as soon as possible. What DFTBA is doing is revolutionary and needs to be supported.
Great post Alan,
I honestly think the same. If people are true music fans wanting to see their favourite artists continue to create new music, they should at least be willing to buy their tracks!!!
Side note: Especially on your side here as I love many of the DFTBA artists :D
"Luckily, my artists and I have the best fans in the world, and as I said above, I’m not worried. Yet."
Good luck with that.
If MP3Rocket gets shutdown, another one will take its place. People like to pirate, they don't care if the sound quality is crap.
You hit the nail on the head re: this "tool" not being a worth-while way to build a music collection. When I go to youtube to listen to a song, I'm already dealing with sound quality issues. The idea of going through the trouble of extracting that audio is, in the words of my boy Kanye West, "f*cking ridiculous."
Good post and I agree. Its getting trickier and trickier for musicians to make a living and the buck needs to stop somewhere.
It won't affect artists in the slightest. There is always live shows and merchandise. These can never be taken away. If someone rips my music from youtube, they must love it enough to tell their friends about it. Win win.
The "time-shifting" argument is ridiculous. That said, I am not sure if this differs from any of the other piracy techniques out there. Whether or not this is an advantage or disadvantage probably depends on the artist, and what sort of revenue they mainly rely on. As Cory states, an artist whose main revenue streams are live shows and merchandise will not be as adversely affected. I guess it is just another argument for making sure that you have diversified as much as possible, and are not relying too heavily on sales of recorded music.
Irony on irony. Here's a company (youtube) who have made a considerable amount of money from illegal uploads (to the extent that Warners still close down soundtracks on their owned copyrights on YT) and here's an artist/label complaining of people ripping their music from YT.
People do like to pirate. The buck will stop wherever it can (at the moment, not with the big companies) and, of course it will affect artists, just like any other free downloading is affecting artists with a year on year reduction in sales of recordings. It's the commercial death of an art form.
I don't know why, but just saying that feels almost cathartic.
This is old hat..I am a full time gigging musician....have been for years. Over that time I have experienced a declining income from the clubs. When I look at my income from 20 years ago the sad reality is I am not making a lot more now than then and I mean in terms of bills in my hand and the price of a loaf of bread has jumped to 5 times as much in that time.. All that to say I am always looking for ways to compensate for the loss of real wages. The net/web has provided me a way to keep my expenses down and one of those ways is to not pay for any music...mp3's, chord charts, lyrics, etc. Youtube has become my go to place to look for new cover material and about 6 months ago I discovered the "Youtube to MP3 converter" and now use them regularly. Let's face it, it's time to stop whining about the horse the has already left the barn. I am also a creator who has a website and 4 CD's out so I am not unaware of the plight of the artist. All intellectual property owners are going to have to become a lot more creative in terms of making a living from there art and what may be a sad reality is that most of us are going to be doing it for the love of it or because that's all we really know or want to do. There's a lot more to say but.......
Well said, Michael. It's shocking how many people (and companies) are clinging to how things "used to be" rather than face the facts. Any and all digital content can be and will be free to download on the Internet. Therefore, artists like yourself and I will have to do what we do because we love to while always searching for ways to still make a living. Right now, artists and labels are clutching to whatever avenues of revenue stream that they can that are dwindling until they can't. This is a completely reasonable tactic that all businesses go by... keep making money in what ever way possible until you absolutely can't anymore.
To comment on the main article, it does seem pretty ridiculous to me that there is a company out there ripping mp3s from youtube content. Mp3's are already of inferior sound quality (but exceptable by most listeners) and making a copy of a shitty version of something is just stupid. To this day, I still hear every so often mp3s poorly converted from ten years back and I cringe. To me, Youtube is already the bottom line when it comes to quality in video and sound content!
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The latest version of MP3 Rocket provides the tool to auto-import songs and videos into iTunes. You can download from here: http://www.rosoftdownload.com/download/Windows/MP3-Rocket