YouTube - A Copyright Violator or Advertising Medium?

Under YouTube's slogan, "Broadcast Yourself", there should be fine print reading "as long as it's within the boundaries that record labels have limited your creative expression to”. YouTube is at the mercy of any corporation that does not want their content shared worldwide, which means every single of the millions of videos uploaded to YouTube must have their audio carefully scanned and checked to make sure it does not belong to any of the corporations that claim their copyrighted material over YouTube.  As soon as a video violates that copyright law, even if it’s just a kid making a harmless cover in their bedroom, it is deleted out of existence, no question. However, corporations have begun to become smarter about their approach to abolishing copyright on video sharing sites such as YouTube. They have begun to realize that by deleting people’s videos they are only creating enemies with their consumers, and that when a video is uploaded to YouTube, no profit is being made by the creator. In essence, rather than stealing their material, YouTube upload-ers are actually becoming an increasing means of advertisement. Many record labels, when they detect their copyrighted material being used in a video, will instead put an advertisement for the song directly beneath the video rather than deleting it altogether. I know that I personally have been introduced to a lot of music because of this new advertising method, and I’m sure a lot of other consumers have as well. It isn’t just the music industry taking advantage of YouTube as an advertising source. Corporations like CBS, BBC, and VEVO have their own YouTube channels and upload their own choice content. NBC even uploaded the entire pilot episode of Smash to YouTube as a way of introducing the show. This revolutionary method of using YouTube as an advertising medium will undoubtedly change the way in which the marketing world works.