(photo by Soulja Boy)

I'm glad I did, its given me a front row seat as YouTube deals with copyright issues.

First the music was muted without warning. Then recently I got an interesting email from YouTube.

Dear Meekshome,

Your video, One Mile Dec 15, 2007, may have content that is owned or licensed by Sony Music Entertainment.

No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

Sincerely,
- The YouTube Team

I checked and I have 3 videos with Content ID matches. Two of them are owned by Sony. On those videos an ad appears and viewers have the opportunity to buy the music on Amazon or iTunes.

This seems like a step towards sanity to me. Having an ad for the music I am using seems fair, reasonable and predictable. Popular music is more popular the more you hear it. Its an advantage to the record label if I spread their music.

I also like it as an immediate and noticeable consequence of using Copyright music. I think this will make it more attractive for video creators to look for CC licensed music. I wonder if artists and small record labels will be able to work with YouTube to do special deals. I'd be happy to have links to buy the songs if I didn't have the ad over my video and might well be more likely to use music from a source that gave me that option.

My third is owned by Warner Music Group who are not willing to play along with YouTube so that video is muted. I'm going to remember that WMG and next time I buy music, if I have an option I will not buy from WMG.