Warner Music Is On CRACK

Because when the Monty Python guys possess MORE sense than you regarding YouTube videos and copyright, then, I’m sorry Warner Music but you fail at life! How utterly delusional do you have to be to think you’re losing money because people are posting home-made dance videos using your songs! Again, when the Monty Python guys are out-thinking you all the way to the bank, besides functioning as a warning to others, what exactly is your value-added to the corporate world?

Do you have any idea how many songs I’ve purchased because I first heard them on video on YouTube?! Here’s three real-life examples:

Fanvid – Women of Firefly (using Wicked’s “Defying Gravity”)

Loved Firefly but, in addition to the craftsmanship of the fanvid, I really enjoyed the lyrics to this song. Snatched this one from the Amazon MP3 store the second I found a version by Idina Menzel.

Bollywood Video (Dar-de-disco)

Spent a weekend a couple months back just watching semi-random clips of Bollywood dance numbers on YouTube. I wrote down several songs but not all were available in the Amazon MP3 store..This one and a couple others were.

HP-Firefly Mash-up Video

Really enjoyable combo of fandoms but this video is how I discovered the awesomeness of Jonathon Coulton. Total songs bought after this vid: 5 that day.

Now, the next bit requires a bit of a leap but work with me: Imagine I’m not the only one who bought these songs after seeing these videos. Each video has a relatively large number of viewings....Let’s assume approximately 1% of those total view(er)s actually did what I did and bought the song, just the song, in the video. The below table shows that in each case, whoever owned these songs MADE MONEY because of these YouTube videos.

Other notes of importance:
(1) The videos themselves were all “unofficial” content, no one affiliated with the content owners had anything to do with creating or posting these videos.
(2) Even if my estimate of which % of viewers actually bought the songs is in question, I know that I bought every song cited (and then some) resulting total actual verifiable gross (spread to all content owners) of $8.91 MIN.
(3) While I cannot speak for any other viewers, for all of these songs, this money is a clear gain because until I watched these videos either did not know these bands or singers existed, much less that these particular songs existed, much less that I liked these songs. What these YouTube videos provided to me wasn’t a source of illegal content; what they provided was a previously missing desire to purchase these songs. If these YouTube videos did not exist, the content owners of these songs would have made $0.

Please also note, this same logic applies to books, television shows and movies for any fan-created or posted work. Again, some real-world-actually-happened-to-me examples are:

Purchasing “North & South” DVDs and Book because of clips of the BBC miniseries on YouTube
Purchasing “Leverage” Episodes via Video On Demand because of clips and trailers on YouTube
Purchasing “Life” DVDs because of clips on YouTube

In conclusion, Warner Music = MORONS because while they may be “numbers people”, like most Big Content companies and industry groups, they also don’t possess the sense (numerical or otherwise) that God gave a bag full of hammers. Please fix.