Youtube: ethics and reactions

[Mark Thomas]

We remove off-air recordings if they are issued commercially. A pirated recording issued commercially is still a pirated recording, and I don't see why we should remove a broadcast recording from our site because of it. The pirates' sales might be affected, but they're hardly in a position to complain, are they? I must own up, though, to having quite a few of PremierOpera's sets, and they are generally well produced and often in good sound.

[Alan Howe]

Me too!

[sdtom]

A couple of questions
1. How much does a FM radio station has to pay to broadcast say the Grandos Dante Symphonic Poem?

2. If I copy it from the broadcast is it illegal?

[Ebubu]

"If I copy it from the broadcast is it illegal?"

I would believe that it would be legal to record a broadcast just for your own personal use.  Anyone can confirm ?

Next question :
If I record a broadcast live concert, is it legal ?  (I personally would think YES)
Is it still legal to share it, even for free (like we all do).  (I personally would think BORDERLINE)
I believe it's (technically) illegal to copy (even for private use) a CD/DVD rented from a library, even though I figure most of us do or have done it....

[Ilja]

The problem is that whether something is legal or not may depend very much on what country you're living in. Terms like "personal use" and "fair use" are defined differently in various places, and they determine to a large extent what one is allowed to do.


That's why I prefer to focus on what is  justifiable - morally but mostly practically. If I put a recently released CD on Youtube, it may be morally wrong but at least as importantly, it countervenes everything we as a community stand for because it will diminish a record label's ability to make a profit off that recording and, subsequently, reduce the likelihood that said label is going to produce new CDs/downloads. And that is all I want.

[sdtom]

I can't agree with what you have to say about Youtube. The overall quality is quite poor and if I hear something that I like on Youtube I'll buy it. I guess I can agree with you if all you need is poor to average quality. I even find 320kps digital files to be inadequate. They lack the fullness and richness that a CD has. From what I understand in the US it is illegal to copy something off of FM and then distribute the recording even if no money changes hands. The same would be true of a Youtube copy. Copying of any kind is illegal. If a new recording comes out the only way to get an idea of the sound is to listen to (not copy) audio clips from the website. Being older I miss the days of being able to go to Tower Records and listen to whatever they had in stock. For Tower it increased their sales. For me today most audio clips are inferior.
Tom

[adriano]

I fully agree with you, sdtom... And, as far as CDs are concerned, such platforms should be only function as "promotional clips" collections, and it should be forbidden in there to upload complete CDs. I am being older too, and have quite some difficulties (as a composer and conductor) with today's abuse of copyrighted files. People taking advantage of this have no idea what were the engagement, efforts and costs behind such productions. Especially in the case of Naxos and Marco Polo artists, who were paid with dog's fees (or even conducted some CDs free of charge, in order to be able to get a project realized) and get no royalties at all - and with whose products the companies still make a lot of money after years and years. I can sing a song about that...

[adriano]

A copyright anecdote - one of quite a few regarding my musical activities - showing what it brings, having agreed with Naxos to cede them all reproduction rights of the recorded sound carrier: Watching one day the (great) two-part feature "Angels in America" I heard some background music which sounded familiar to me - and I discovered they had used two tracks of my Naxos-Marco Polo CD "La Belle et la Bête". I am sure they had to pay a nice sum of money for using this, far superior to my conductor's fee. But I was more wexed to see that in the film's end titles, my name was not even mentioned, there was only the orchestra's name. In the list of all used music, there was also a piece conducted by Henri Mancini, but, of course, his name was fully mentioned!

[Ilja]

@sdtom: these days Youtube sound quality can go up to 192 kbps AAC @ 44,000 KHz (IIRC). Tests seem to indicate that a majority of people are not able to distinguish a 192 kpbs MP3 recording from higher bitrates. That means that for the vast majority of listeners, the sound is "good enough", and that free Youtube recordings form a real threat to paid commercial ones.

The situation is a bit different for pre-2012 videos, where the sound was maxed to 152 kbps. Prior to 2011, the maximum was 128 kbps.

In the Netherlands, prior to the digital age the use and non-commercial exchange of audio cassettes was condoned with the argument that the quality of a cassette copy was significantly inferior to that of the original product. As I can see, for Youtube that argument doesn't hold up any longer – for most people – particularly keeping in mind how easy it is to rip audio off YT.


Rather than engaging in this rat race to upload and take down videos, a better solution might be to restrict flagged videos to, say, 96 kbps (the same bitrate commonly used for podcasts and the like), so that there is again a significant difference in audio quality and the purchase of a recording offers added value once again.

[sdtom]

1. I didn't realize that the quality was that high. Far below a wave file but still high enough for most folks. Your solution of reducing it to 96kps is a sound idea. Since I now have a nice stereo system I'm happy with getting the physical CD.
Tom