Psst! Skip on the viral promotion! Pass it on....

A couple of days ago, a Reuters story surfaced about how the RIAA is less-than-thrilled with viral distribution of music videos - particularly with the all-you-can-eat buffets of YouTube and others. Once solely a promotional tool, music videos have recently been offered for purchase, and (according to the article) have accounted for $3.7 million in 3 months of sales alone. Thus, the RIAA is looking plug up any holes of potentially lost revenue and direct users seeking these works to the label-backed services such as iTunes, Google Video, Urge, etc.

While you could weigh in on either side of this argument, my fear is how this will affect Machinima works (as well as AMVs and other home-brewed creativity) in the future. One of the great uses of Machinima is being able to create music videos - to be so moved by a piece of music, that you feel inspired to put your own vision to it. Just as the majority of narrative Machinimas are homages to the games by which they're developed from, these works show a deep appreciation to the artists who create the music (yes, even the aforementioned WoW/Guild Wars/"Can't Touch This" vid).

Soon enough, YouTube and others will have (if they don't already), a "copyright task force" monitoring their systems for any content seemingly unlicensed. This will most likely be partnered with stronger messaging at the POT (point of transfer). Right now, a Machinimist can upload their music video work without fear of takedown (for the most part) - however, once these services have stemmed the tide of unauthorized uploads of music videos, there's no doubt they will shift their focus to the "unofficial" videos - the ones the fans are producing to show off their work combined with their favorite music. Surely, these can only be good for the recording industry. In fact, I know first hand that it has a positive effect--quite a few emails have been sent to me by people who were introduced to Breaking Benjamin through my Still Seeing Breen vid, who in turn, purchased the artist's CD. But given the RIAA's "no comment" to Cory Doctorow's inquiry surrounding RPGFilms.net last year, it's only a matter of time before they disrupt these new "word-of-mouse" channels themselves.

To end on a somewhat up note - here's two CC-linked music videos: Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton - a Machinima music video made by Frank Dellario of the ILL Clan, and a real fave band of mine, Pearl Jam's "Life Wasted" music vid, released under the CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license.