I copied theses quotes to start a new thread from the Now Playing conversation about Youtube......
"Interesting to hear that youtube is used these days by lots of people primarily to browse for music."...Pete Kelly
"That only bothers me is if the music is up there without the artist's or label's consent. It's not unusual to see entire albums up there, and I would be surprised if most of the postings had prior consent. The default assumption these days seems to be that you must have consented to it, even if you didn't know about it or didn't see it up there when you last checked."... Forrest Fang
"Don't think audiophiles would be going to YouTube for stealing music or anything. I see it as a good form of promotion."....drone on
"What drone on said. The top referrer to my site is YouTube, with an average bounce rate of 35%. In my case, it's an excellent form of promotion."....Altus
"Yes, but that's the individual artist or label's decision to make, not the listener's. I'm completely OK with the occasional piece of mine appearing on a blog mix, for example. What I'm not OK with is a person posting one of my releases in its entirety anywhere in any form without my consent or my label's. This has happened more than once and I've had to sent take down notices."....Forrest Fang
"While I agree with what Forrest says (I wouldn't be best pleased if someone uploded one of my albums without my permission), I still think it's where a lot of people are going to find new music, so I make a video (usually a montage) whenever I release something and put it up on the choob.
I can't think of better ways to get it 'out there'. soundcloud (for example) doesn't work in that way, in my experience."....Pete Kelly
"When music that is mentioned here in the "Now Playing" thread that I might be interested in I follow whatever links are offered and also head to youtube which usually has a fair share of the artists music to help me decide in my purchase. It is a great resource. I agree with Forrest about artists rights yet most of the youtube post I listen to have so much admiration for the music being posted its hard to fault it.
Really a lot of my music purchasing decisions are often based more on youtube than the artist websites because of the silly 30 second sound clip rule that many adhere.....perhaps a Youtube thread?"...Julio Di Benedetto
"Pete and Julio,
I know there can be an inherent tension between an artist or a small label's rights and a listener's desire to hear as music as he or she can for as cheap as possible, and that YouTube for some fulfills that need alone, while other use it as a basis for experimenting with purchasing new music. Ultimately, if musicmaking can no longer pay for itself and, instead, musicians continue to lose money paying for mastering, licensing of photos and artwork, you will have fewer musicians able or willing to do this at a continued loss and I think the pool of available music will gradually become the poorer for it. If listeners truly respect the musicians whose music they like, they should pay for it, unless the musician chooses to make it available for free. I try to balance my pay releases with some "free" material, such as my "Seeds of Memory" EP on Thomas Park's Treetrunk netlabel, as a way of giving those unfamiliar with my work a taste of what I do.
I buy quite a bit of music, physical and virtual, so I try to put money where my mouth is, as I think it's the right thing to do."...Forrest Fang
"What you say here Forrest is becoming a disturbing reality, or perhaps is a reality. The idea of a pool of music becoming a puddle is a sad picture. Some might say that there is so much out there that maybe its not a terrible thing yet it would be for the wrong reason. All suffer for sure.
I feel that artists / musicians need to step up their personal exposure via websites / Bandcamp etc....and offer music fans a decent amount of music to listen to to help the purchasing process and thus avoid the need for youtube browsing. This is my reason for going to youtube because I often cant find the music discussed here. 30 second sound clips @ amazon, itunes & cdbay does not promoted sales in IMHO. I realize that what you say Forrest goes much deeper and started with the Napster thing and now "Free" is the first step towards success
This is a huge topic.....one worth chatting about for musicians and even more so music lovers."....Julio Di Benedetto
"This is an interesting topic. You guys should create a separate thread for it so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle."....Chris23