Having evaluated my research, I found that the sample used YouTube to listen to music (with twenty percent) so I wanted to explore it further. Limewire, with sixty percent is used the most by my sample to download music which I thought would be interesting to look into, as I haven't used it before.
YouTube
YouTube is "the world's most popular online video site" (1) allowing users to watch any video uploaded by users. It is owned by Google inc; was founded and launched in 2005. It has a logan of "Broadcast Yourself" which means users can upload their own videos onto the website as long as they have registered.
Like social networking sites, users can comment on pages, can join certain channels and subscribers. Similarly to Myspace, YouTube has helped some users get noticed for their home-made videos. For instance, American Chris Crocker, is very passionate in broadcasting his thoughts- about Britney Spears (Leave Britney Alone!) and homosexuality. Leave Britney Alone! was nominated in the Commentary category in 2007s YouTube Awards. Tay Zonday is another example, with his first song "Chocolate Rain" (released in 2007). He was nominated for People's Voice Award, won a YouTube Award and a Webby-Award, with 60 million video views on YouTube.
Robson's article mentioned how "Many teenagers use YouTube to watch videos (usually anime which cannot be watched anywhere else) and some use it as a music player by having a video with the music they want to listen to playing in the background." I think this is accurate in what users use YouTube as I asked four participants what they used YouTube for the most. Their responses were:
"Mostly music and for comedy videos",
"Music, although some of the videos are rubbish quality",
"Allsorts, I often find myself clicking on random ones that look good and funny",
"I like listening to the music videos, it has so many to choose".
Personally my uses are the same to these responses as I find the music videos are easy to find. It is perhaps unfortunate how there are copyright issues as people upload videos which they think our their own. Copyright issues have been dealt with over the years and last month there was a report on the news.
On 3rd September, the BBC reported how YouTube had lifted the music video block as an agreement over fees has been arranged. In March when the ban begun, many music artists were not receiving fair payment for their songs. PRS for Music (Performing Right Society*) and YouTube agreed that music song-writers would have a fair payment for each time their video was viewed. According to the BBC report, "services such as Pandora.com, MySpace UK and Imeem have also had issues securing licensing deals in the UK in the past 12 months".
It is difficult to say how much pop music is listened to on YouTube but looking at the Top Video pages there are approximately eighteen of Pop music artists, over the five pages and mostly Lady Gaga and JLS.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube
http://www.prsformusic.com/aboutus/pages/default.aspx
(1) YouTube- BBC- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8234125.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7942045.stm
Added note: *PRS- "We exist to collect and pay royalties to our members when their music is exploited in one of a number of ways – when it is recorded onto any format and distributed to the public, performed or played in public, broadcast or made publicly available online."
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Limewire
"Young people's attitudes to music may be too complicated and fast-changing to measure, says Bill Thompson
Peer-to-peer (p2p) download services are still popular with music-loving kids, it seems. The second annual survey of young people's music consumption by pressure group UK Music found among 1,808 respondents aged 18 to 24 that three-fifths of them used p2p services, and four-fifths of those did so at least once a week.
This is almost the same as last year's result, and would seem to indicate that the efforts by the music industry to offer a range of licensed alternatives to Limewire and other p2p services have failed to have any real impact."
LimeWire was initially launched in 2000 and is an example of a free peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P). It is a method for users to illegally download music for free. There are two versions of the program which Lime Wire LLC has developed: the basic version which is free and an enhanced version called LimeWire PRO for $21.95 or $34.95. LimeWire claims "the paid version provides faster download and sixty-six percent better search results". Even more, it uses the Gnutella network –a file sharing network to locate files as well as share files.
"Kids, it seems, like unlicensed services because they are free. But the report also acknowledges their usefulness in finding more obscure music and letting them listen to a band before they buy, so closing them down may actually make it harder for new artists to break through." Thompson makes a good point here, if users do not listen to different and unusual artists, it will be more difficult for them to be found by possible listeners and fans.
LimeWire seems very complicated and I don’t think I will either use it. The technology behind it is hard to understand and I would not be surprised if many young users were not aware of the illegal networks and processes it uses. I asked one participant aged 15, why they used LimeWire and their responses were: “It’s easy to get any song you want. I love it!”.
Source: wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LimeWire
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