YouTube's Audio Recognition Software | Good or Bad?
Speaking as an "early adopter" long-time YouTuber, it's been interesting to see watch its evolution & impact on the world. I'm hearing it's also being used as a search engine as much as it is for checking out videos?
Obviously, Google knew full well what it would & could do with YouTube when they bought it a few years back for $1.65 BILLION - specifically, they knew they could ensure videos hosted on YouTube would come up first - or close to it - in its search engine results. From there, they could put ad overlays on the videos, invite visitors to click on the "Promoted Videos," put up pay for click ads, banner ads, etc. Make money from other people's talent, to put it simply.
Early on, I also noticed that when someone posted a video with a song they didn't own the rights to (myself included), YouTube rarely removed the video. Instead, they figured there was more money to be made leaving it on. They'd put up an ad, inviting the viewer to buy the song at Amazon.com or some other online shopping cart (smart). My low-resolution version of Stardust is one example; it's gotten over 350,000 views by now, it comes up on page #1 of Google (video tab), it features links to other Nat King Cole songs for sale online, and the comments people post about it truly blow me away (keep 'em coming!).
NOTE: Although I've gotten invites from YouTube to apply for their revenue sharing program (what a nightmare filling out their forms!), I have never made a dime from any of my online videos; my stuff is free entertainment, which actually costs me $ as a professional video editor.
Lately, though, I've noticed something when trying to post videos featuring other artists' music: The audio is sometimes automatically deleted, with some kind of notice saying "YouTube does not have a licensing agreement for this music" or something along those lines. Wow.
Setting aside the more nefarious implications of that same software being used to monitor people's conversations and certain phrases with electronic eavesdropping (legally or, more likely --- illegally), this is actually pretty fantastic news for songwriters and publishers: It means YouTube now has software in place to ensure these people get paid for their art.
Speaking for myself, this is right in time with some proposals I've been dialing in, which pays royalties to artists based on a per-view basis for videos featuring their on-camera performances. I mean, look at it: Until/unless the end of the world happens, online videos will NEVER go away - might as well figure out a way to get paid off those things, eh?
