If the future of music videos and legal content on YouTube is like the collaboration between CBC Music in Canada and YouTube on The Great Big Sea 20 Anniversay Concert then as a fan I really don't want to go there.
CBC Music put together a 30 minute live concert video of some the previous individual Great Big Sea music videos recorded at Toronto's Danforth Music Hall at the beginning of the Great Big Sea 20 Anniversary tour.
The individual Great Big Sea music videos were published on YouTube in February, 2013 and have accumulated thousands to hundreds of thousands of hits on some songs. The individual music videos consists of an explanation by Great Big Sea band members Alan Doyle and Bob Hallett about the song and then followed by the live concert version of the song. I really enjoy revisiting these videos time and time again over the past couple of years.
When I first listened to the 30 minute music video there was an ad about a minute in and I was ready to give up. Then I tried again because I wanted to give an accurate impression of this music video. Songs like Excursion Around The Bay, The River Driver, Old Black Rum and When I'm Up (I Can't Get Down) had an ad right in the middle of the song. The songs were not in the order they appeared in the concert.
In between some songs there were ads instead of the explanations provided by Alan Doyle and Bob Hallett in the original music videos which I really enjoyed. The songs were edited and didn't always begin at the beginning or end at the ending of songs. About 30 seconds before the end of the music video of When I'm Up (I Can't Get Down) the music video went to an ad and I had to wait for the ad before the music video finished.
Most of the individual music videos attract advertising at the beginning of the video. I don't want to unsubscribe to advertising on YouTube because the revenue goes to the artists, musicians and content creators like CBC Music and I am happy to put up with it for this reason. But there has to be some thought about where advertising goes in a block of content.
I certainly do not hold Great Big Sea responsible as the content does not belong to them. It seems to me like CBC Music is double dipping into content, first making money of hits and advertsing on the original music videos and then again on this new version which has attracted over 21 000 hits. If this is the future of their music video content arrangement on YouTube then I will thinking twice about how I support Canadian music via YouTube. The way the ads were placed show absolute comptempt for the viewer and no respect for the content.
I have circulated a copy of the concert video on my Google + page. I have also circulated some of the excellent individual videos as well.
