Would you pay for a music video??

It's hasn't been long but the infamous group known as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is back in the news and they got something NEW to whine about.

"Viral video sharing would not have been an issue just 18 months ago, when the labels still viewed music videos as a promotional tool for selling albums. But today videos are a rapidly growing money-maker for the music business. The RIAA estimates that sales of music videos topped $3.7 million in three months, after being introduced in October"

Are they freakin kidding me? Music Videos have always been a form of advertising and a way for us consumers to want to buy an artists album. From my knowledge a great deal of the videos are paid for by the artist with a budget they have been given. The RIAA will probably spend way more in legal fees trying to get the likes of Youtube and similar sites to stop allowing these videos to be shared but this will only hurt the artist. Have you turned on MTV or VH1 recently?? Can you remember the last time you saw an actual music video playing on there?? ... Me Neither. Sure there is TRL but in general these stations have turned to the craze of reality TV and more lucrative offerings. Music Videos have helped album sales for decades and now people are sharing them with the rest of the world. Someone in China who may not have seen the newest Shakira video but now that its on Youtube is able to enjoy it this can in turn help him/her decide to buy the artist's album. Now the RIAA want to be compensated essentially for the world giving their artists a boost by advertising their music on the net?? In essence they want us to pay for commercials and/or pay for the right to show commercials... Pure ludicrous.

To me a music video is the equivalent of a TV commercial... with a purpose to hype up the product to get you to buy it. Advertising on TV has been one of the strongest ways to get consumer awareness of a product and music videos were just telling the fans that there is something new out there. How about TV remove all the stupid commercials we are forced to watch through our favorite shows. They should implement this RIAA theory too and make us pay for them or else watch TV commercial free!! Taking it further maybe the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) should take a lesson from this and stop showing us the movie trailers. They give away most of the good parts anyway so they should stop showing them on TV and maybe then we will actually want to see a movie that hasn't been ruined for us in a 2 minute preview!!!

I understand that the artists were losing money from pirated music but really... would u pay $1 to download a music video so you can watch it once or twice? The public is helping the artist by sharing the music video and bringing it to people who may not see it elsewhere and really do you need to see it more than once its not like some classic movie or even porn. Sometimes its nice to be able to get your hands on an old video that doesn't get airtime and it might remind you of an album and you might want to go buy it. They are stupid to be fighting this... music videos on the net is one of the best free advertising an artist can get but because the RIAA has no control over it they don't want to give the artist that luxury either??

No matter how hard the RIAA's of the world try and no matter how much money they throw at their problem, they will never stop determined people from obtaining their content for free. Groups like this will always be reacting to the proactive.

On that note just because I can...