Whenever you start watching videos online, what are the main criteria for those you choose? Being free or of a good quality? Ask yourself, are you a kind of person that wants to pay for videos/movies/shows? I bet you’re not. We are all trying to save a few bucks on whatever, but is it fair? The huge companies like Paramount, Universal, Walt Disney Pictures or Warner Bros. spend millions dollars on movie making and expect people to pay for being entertained, but do all of us pay?

It would be silly to believe that huge movie making companies will let you go with free internet downloads… They surely won’t. The MPAA - Motion Picture Association of America works as the guard of the legal distributioning, was found in 1922, and was originally called “the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America” (MPPDA). They claim it was a non-profit business and trade association based in the United States, which was formed to advance the business interests of movie studios. Nowadays it’s members are:

1. Walt Disney Pictures (The Walt Disney Company);
2. Columbia Pictures (Sony Corporation);
3. Paramount Pictures (Viacom);
4. 20th Century Fox (News Corporation);
5. Universal Studios (NBC Universal);
6. Warner Bros. (Time Warner).

These guys seem to do the right job. They fight against piracy and make “bad guys” pay for violating rights. But is everything that simple? During the past 6 years MPAA has sued and closed such services as:

Movierumor.com,

SSUpload.com,

Cinematube.net,

PeekVid.com,

Pullmylink.com

and many others. As a matter of fact,  services like PeekVid did not host any copyright-infinging videos, just linked to those available in the web. Looks like anyone can link to pirated videos until they gain enough traffic to face a lawsuit. Will a telling a neighbour that your sister’s husband can make a copy of any DVD also be an infringement? Or shall you put a sign to be sued?

Just to make things clear I’d like to make a statement: I’d never download a movie and would not sell the copies of the DVD’s I own, but the news like: MPAA Sues Grandfather for $600,000 or MPAA Sues Grandmother for $150k make me desperately want to start doing these things…

The fact that Motion Picture Association of America cares about the money only does not make it that popular. Those guys still can not get that they will never be able to sue every single copyright infringer and they can not appeal to his conscience, because of the actions they take and their policy.

Here is some anti-MPAA art related to the topic:

About a week ago a new, similar to YouTube service has been launched by Viacom’s MTV . MTVmusic.com is a very clean, simple, good looking site full of music videos only which vary from vintage videos like Elvis Presley’s “Baby I Don’t Care” to the most recent like Radiohead’s live videos “From The Basement“. Still there is an opinion that the majority of people will continue using YouTube for music videos. Here are some reasons why I strongly recommend MTVmusic:

1. On MTVmusic.com you have ability of watching full length music videos in good quality which is not quite true with YouTube, where you have to sort for hours good ones out of the trashy search results. I always get extremely nervous when instead of watching a music video I have to stare at some crappy slideshow made by a fan. I want REAL music videos and NOT fan art!
2. It’s much easier to search! I think you happened to face the problem of not knowing the proper spelling of a band/ song name (usually with the new ones) and on MTVmusic they have a feature of browsing bands by the first letter. Try to search for “R” or “S” on YouTube, I bet it will take you a month to bump into Radiohead or Sigur Ros. There is also a great feature of browsing videos by genre or poularity.
3. Today more than 16K music videos and live performances are waiting for you to watch them on MTVmusic.com. It’s all like good old MTV and you call the tune without even paying the piper!
4. A great feature on MTVmusic is exclusive unplugged and live videos. So far I’ve spent hours enjoying them.
5. And the greatest thing I love about MTVmusic is that there is no copyright violation there. Can anyone say the same about YouTube? I mean, they run that message saying: “Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself. The Copyright Tips page and the Community Guidelines can help you determine whether your video infringes someone else’s copyright.” But why do they have all those music videos then?

Anyway, I think there are many things about using YouTube for music videos to reconsider now, because copyright, ease and exclusiveness really matter. So, if you want your MTV - just go there and take it!