is how fantastic their Search facility is.

So far superior to any other. My Space? Forget it. Facebook? Useless.

But You Tube is magnificent.
I use it to hear music, ignoring the video, because it is so easy and so efficient to search.

Facebook is different to be fair though, it`s more like "Friends Reunited" was on the whole.

It is not the easiest site to navigate though and takes some getting used to.

But yes, YouTube search is fantastic, many an evening spent putting records on after dinner has been replaced by simply typing in the title to YouTube.(It rarely fails, somebody has normally put a track up you want to hear)
It does suffer from lag sometimes though, but it won`t always, the sound has improved incredibly.
The only worry of course, is where`s the royalties?

When it comes to searching, Facebook and Myspace are a nightmare. Very confusing and not enough filter facilities to help hone in on what exactly one is looking for.

YouTube does depend a lot on how people tag their videos and thankfully it seems many do tag them well. I do like the predictive text in the search box... I start typing in a title and it will appear underneath saving some typing time! If there is no video of the song then more often than not, somebody's put up the audio, sometimes showing the actual record playing which always gives me a nostalgia fix! I also notice a few users have figured out how to have the clips in stereo... I was stunned to hear Georgie Fame's "Yeh Yeh" from 1964 in true stereo thanks to YouTube... a lovely mix too for it's time.

Hard too, to believe that YouTube has only been going for 3 years.

But... as Mart succinctly points out - where are the royalties? YouTube cannot surely go on forever as it currently is with all the music it has and nobody getting paid. Many clips have been viewed thousands of times. Imagine if that was radio plays... you'd get paid for that so why not YouTube plays? Then of course there's all the copyrighted TV and film material. Quite a legal minefield.

I hadn't realised that was a secret, JK.

Elliott wrote:
YouTube cannot surely go on forever as it currently is with all the music it has and nobody getting paid.

Nobody getting paid? The major labels are co-owners of YouTube, so they will get paid. (Probalby much more than they deserve).
And in Germany, GEMA is collecting royalties for songwriters (since last year).

DJones wrote:
Elliott wrote:
YouTube cannot surely go on forever as it currently is with all the music it has and nobody getting paid.

Nobody getting paid? The major labels are co-owners of YouTube, so they will get paid. (Probalby much more than they deserve).
And in Germany, GEMA is collecting royalties for songwriters (since last year).
This is a question that is on my list for my PRO. The fact that the labels are part owners is nice. But as a songwriter, that doesn't concern me. I'd like to know more about how the writers benefit.

Has anyone on this board seen any revenue that is attributable to plays on YouTube? I'd love to know.

The payment agreement is a joke. We're talking a seriously paltry amount. Songwriters and producers have been royally fucked over.