YouTube is my goto when I'm searching out a particular track. Nothing compares to the amount of people who upload songs to YouTube. But think about the legality of it vs. the others. Not a lot of people are reporting infringement to YouTube (or they do nothing about it, but they usually do). 

The majors have agreements with YouTube.  They can have videos taken down.  But they can also make YouTube pay them for the views per their agreement.  Trust me, the music industry isn't letting them slide on infringement.

Google/YouTube receive hundreds of take-down notices. But it's a game of wack-a-mole, once it has been uploaded, others  downloaded it and then re-upload under different user names.

 It is the main go to source for many for pirated "free" music. There are numerous apps and sites that allow users to download the music as mp3s. It referred as "time-shifting".  These apps range from the simple, download and convert one video to download albums and wish lists of files! The music industry is so far behind the ball they don't even realize it.

 ....and if the MP3s not high quality (but most are) just upload it to your iTunes cloud and you get yourself a nice fresh clean copy!

 It's the same old technologist exploitation story. Get users to upload creators content, to drive traffic to your site and maximize on the advertising dollar. The unpaid labor force, the slaves, happily upload content as you dangle the carrot of fame and fortune like the lottery. Pick the 1 in 10 Billion that gets some form of fame, maximize the publicity on that example, and slaves will come running to populate your site with content. Any content is fine (Google: "we cannot police what users upload"), but good music content and videos preferably!

 YouTube, probably has more recorded tracks than are in the iTunes database!

 A little trickle of revenue does dribble to some of the record companies and content creators but the lion share goes to the young men in Silicon Valley so they can continue to become infinitely rich.

 Pah... Wake-Up everybody!

The biggest problem with YouTube right now is Youtube to mp3. Take any track on the planet, convert the video to .mp3 and now the track is yours for free.  Go one step further and upload it with iTunes match and you get a 256kbps version (after upload, deletion, download) on your computer, iPhone and iPad.   

Who's gonna stop this? 

Do the labels even realize this is possible?

People who want to download songs go to places where you download songs. People who want to stream songs go to youtube. The number of people who want to download crappy audio extracted from youtube videos is very low, I can assure you. Probably just people who can't figure out bit torrent or google. Plus the service takes several minutes to convert.

This will make it more difficult for leaks to be controlled, but no one is building a collection of music using this type of last resort method.

People use multiple sources to download their music. The file locker sites are the main go to, but often for hard to find tracks YouTube is hard to beat. The new aps that are out there allow you to select an album or collection, the details are sourced from online databases such as Gracenote, Freedb then using that information they automatically search YouTube for the right videos and files. Putting together the album or collection as they go. I think so many artists and labels are completely unaware of the extent of what is going on. Behind the closed door Google execs must have had a round of high-fives when they managed to placate the labels with the buy album button.

You Tube to mp3 is a BIG problem.

Did you know ALL browsers have this facility BUILT into the software as a plug in. For most you have to opt in, but for FIREFOX it comes already activated.

So, the 'Download' tab appears, you click on it and the mp3 is yours.

My daugher is 15 (too young to buy legal files) and ALL her year group do this. There iPods are bursting with illegal content.

This is the 'elephant in the room' for major labels and they have to stop browsers from making it sooo easy.

Yes. It is indeed far to easy. This behavior ultimately hurts the artist. I'm not a major label, just an artist/indie who's a galaxy away from making even minimum wage. For me it's love over gold. I'm 100% supportive of fair use blogs that are cultural safety nets which archive long lost, ultra rare and out of circulation music. I'm a big mixtape fan too. If it wasn't for mixtapes from girlfriends and mates my taste would be sorely lacking. They only promoted me to seek out the music and artists. I sincerely hope your daughter and her classmates continue to love music. Do they use or have heard of streaming apps? Thought not. Just as easy to use and install ;)     

I am trying to convert her to Spotify and she does use it.

Bottom line - Google need to wise up and stop promoting/supporting and participating in illegal music trading.

Governments in every corner of the world need to do as the UK has done and force internet providers to block illegal sites.

And if 'YouTube' is activily allowing illegal downloads, block that!

Germany almost has.

Cool. My music is on Spotify. It's pretty much a promotional exercise for me (as you may be aware of the mini micro payments to reach both the artist and label) Deezer is better in terms of payment for artists, though not massively so. I've been to a party where folks have paid for the premium service (no adverts) and have deejayed all night on it. It worked. As for the bottom line it goes a long long way down...VPNs are currently making the blocking of illegal links almost impossible to track. I'm highly aware that the privacy and freedom issue is strongly being threatened and are very finely balanced when the law, by using the copyright/illegal downloading card, takes away the digital rights of not just users but also shuts down free speech, innovation and basic consumer rights. Serious thought, consideration, full engagement and global discussion need to be explored to prevent the internet from being turned into a pale, vapid and crippled lacklustre space of visionless homogenised content and ideas. Blocking invariably destroys evolutionary process and we begin to mirror governmental/corporate excessive repression of the human spirit. I'm simply saying that life, uh...finds a way.  

PS: And my above comment on the law using excessive force to suppress free speech while utilizing the "copyright infrigement" card as a repressive tool is perfectly described here on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's blog about one such RIAA case. And yes Paul, please do cover this story. It's important.

Er.... While they successfully distracted everyone with bills aimed at piracy prevention and intellectual property theft, like SOPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, bill passed on a vote of 248 to 168. It was backed by all the technology companies, Google, Apple, Facebook etc.,  Essentially it allows the sharing of personal information between companies and government agencies. In return for sharing the data with the government agencies the tech companies effectively get a green light to collect and store personal data with the removal of existing oversights and privacy safeguards. Piracy, the Tech companies want no additional safeguards, but free speech the tech companies don't want that, they and the govenrment want to monitor it all. All speech is NOW monitored. Getting bills like SOPA thrown out because of free speech concerns while backing CISPA says it all.....Where were the twitter campaigns, the shut-down of wikipedia, Google's protests etc., ??

I know about CISPA. But that doesn't mean you just lie down and take it. There is no justice. Just us.

EFF screaming about one site and ignoring the elphant in the room - Google who censors all the time. Last year alone they made 11 million sites disappear on a whim, removing the .co.cc domains from its search index because the sites were deemed by Google to be “spammy”. Where was the "due process"??

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/17/beyond_sopa

I find from talking to teens, that if they find a song on youtube they like they go to iTunes and buy it! I think youtube is fantastic advertising which more than makes up for anyone downloading the audio from there.

We've had people make their own videos using our songs, which have gotten tens of thousands of hits, we ask them to put our website at the end and they do. Also, I get people downloading our live performances from youtube to their phones and ipods and sharing us with all their friends, again, great free advertising!

And no comment on their payments to artists? Way lower than any of those other services

YouTube = just another way Google screws artistic communities.

I think Deezer is worldwide the biggest music player - active in almost 100 countries and more than 25 million users. 

it's about 2 mm monthly active worldwide (according to Deezer) 

11 yrs ago I was running a venue.  I was telling bands then that the wave of the future was on video.  Everyone laughed, including my business partner.  Today, I am a talent consultant for bands, venues, and festivals.  I am now telling bands that if they want to get booked anywhere in the next three years, they had better have video up.  I want to see what I'm buying.

I am not surprised by these numbers.  Although at a highly personal level, I rarely go to YouTube unless I'm looking for something specifically.

Not another "10 years ago I was telling everyone __________ and they all laughed" story.

Please.

::MW

Yes, another "10 years ago I was telling everyone __________ and they all laughed" story" and a true one.

I just spent three days working a major regional festival.  I again discussed what we who are talent advisors and buyers want.  We want video.  In three yrs if you don't have video on YouTube your chances of getting onto festival stages is almost nil. 

Get thee on YOUTUBE people.  We want to see you, not just hear you.  I now spend over half my time prospecting new talent by going to YouTube.

And you just realize it now? Blah

People want it & they want it quick!

that is a lot of performances to be matched! Who’s going to do it?

BEHOLD! The power of YouTube!

Not surprised

WOW

Staggering...

Not surprising!

Youtube also has content that a user can find nowhere else.  If I want to hear an old band (20th century artist) perform a song, I know I will be able to find it on youtube. The content owner has a choice send takedown notice or make available for purchase and wait for the long tail

If you have an adequate internet connection Youtube is really great for researching a band. Unfortunately too many people post really crappy videos that one has to sort through. On the other hand some people have done quite well posting things like guitar lessons and then selling the full DVDs of those lessons from their website.

And there is a ton of just for fun stuff to be found. I am also amazed to find all kinds of things from foreign countries, such as West African artists who are completely unknown in this country.

Spotify is horrible, it wants to direct my attention to things it thinks are important, iTunes requires me to have some idea of what I'm looking for when maybe I don't know. Plus it's always for sale whereas on Youtube I can just watch a bunch of stuff and decide what I want from there.

I'm on a campaign to reduce the "music is a commodity" thinking that prevails currently to the "music is an expericence" metaphor. You don't  use it up when you experience it, it stays with you for life. Youtube is more friendly to the "experience" way of looking at it. If artists want to be big they have to give their fans a solid feeling of participation.

You Tube to mp3, nuff said

began to watch pink floyd Pulse on the Tube, and saw that it was good.

So I went to the shop to buy it in BluRAy, or DVD if they don't have as BluRay... well, they had none of them. the next shop neither.

Went back home, and watched "survivor".....

i'll wait to order the BluRay online or find it somewhere, now that i saw that it could be nice to watch in HD....3

Youtube replaced the music shops listening rooms for me, and the word of mouth, and so many other things. remove that from me, i will have to go back to leeching for information.

Get your facts straight Groovshark trumpts them all !!!

This makes Youtube's payment policy look even more scandalous.

I Want My MTV is a great book - read it over the holidays.

I have music on all of the mentioned sites but Pandora, just because my distributor was not dealing with them.  Youtube has some great ideas for copyright protection but the idea that the owner has to request take downs for infriging material is a little wacked, who has time for this? 

I have songs on Spotify but they still haven't fixed genre mistakes on their end that confuse me with a dead jazz player. 

iTunes has also added this other musicians bios to my songs which is pretty much giving him credit for songs that I wrote.

Rhapsody and Grooveshark got it right, I guess they use better meta data.

Hopefully they use the song id's to allocate the money correctly. 

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them! 

Also curious as to why Amazon wasn't mentioned, this is the hardest place to find my music as you either have to search by the song title or have the direct url to find my songs because my songs are piled in with the dead jazz player also.