For those who have not heard, the big news in this arena is that the RIAA is suing YouTube. Probably not true, but they are at least taking action to have content removed from YouTUbe. Afterdawn.com reports the reasoning behind this as YouTube’s harboring of “unlicensed music videos, much of which is coming from MTV broadcasts…posted onto the site.” (example of letter sent by YouTube after removal of content at the RIAA’s behest).

I know this post is beating a dead horse, but I feel inclined to make it; some people are passionate about politics, I’m passionate about the stupidity of failing music associations.

This marks another in a long line of irrational moves by the RIAA. As much as their previous actions have been public relations nightmares, this in particular is an immense blunder. The music video is an object of pure advertising. A music video’s sole purpose of existing is to be viewed by as many people as possible in an attempt to instill within those people to buy music by the artist. Perhaps a few music videos are shot for artistic reasons, but given the financial and temporal investments, the overwhelming majority are there to make money. (Thus, MTV is generally just a collection of advertisements in one form of another; a rather good business plan if you asked me.) The only difference I can imagine between regular advertisements and music videos is that television stations like MTV and VH1 buy the rights to play the videos from the record labels. If this is true, then the RIAA is potentially losing money by having the videos on YouTube without any rights being bought.

Still, I have to wonder how much money could be made by the buying of such rights. Is it really reasonable to assume the videos are made to be sold to television channels? No, of course not. That would require exorbitant prices, since some videos are shown only a few times on one channel, or not even at all, and I don’t see this all working itself out like it does in the movie business (failed movies are acceptable since successful movies are so profitable). However, that does not eliminate the possibility of even a small charge to buy the rights. This may amount to a substantial number, but is it significant compared to the money the record label hopes to make by having the video viewed? I bet not.

So, if all my reasoning works is backed by real life, then why ask YouTube to remove music videos? Sure, the content is technically copyrighted and posting that content without permission infringes on those copyrights, but who cares? Interesting commercials find their way onto YouTube all the time without any uproar from the respective product’s companies. Shouldn’t the RIAA be happy for the free publicity its artists are gaining? If anyone should be upset, it is the music video channels who are being relegated to “just another way to see these videos” status. Maybe Viacom (owner of MTV, BET, VH1, and CMT) is in cahoots with the RIAA, forcing them to force YouTube to remove the videos, but I’m not going to get into conspiracy theories.

The bottom line is this move by the RIAA isn’t even arguably an almost, somewhat, kinda okay move. One could argue the RIAA’s never ending string of suits brought against unsuspecting downloaders has some sort of scare-tactic logic behind it, but this YouTube business is just nonsensical. I hope the RIAA realizes it might be better not to spend all its time inventing new ways to alienate its consumer base before it’s too late.

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