Everyone knows about YouTube right, the biggest video sharing site online. YouTube is full of user provided content, and over time the videos have been getting better & better. If you haven’t checked it out, you should see their top videos page, go straight to the best YouTube videos here.

Recently YouTube changed their policy on some copyright issues though, and its leading to lots of muted videos on YouTube, what’s going on! Here is an article on the muted YouTube videos that includes some sample video links too. Turns out YouTube is trying to be a little bit more of a copyright enforcer than before. Users make videos they upload on YouTube with audio that is sometimes not their property, for example, lots of people use their favorite songs behind videos they create. The mashup of original work, combined with someone else’s work (the song), makes for a final product that is not wholly original. YouTube must have made a liability decision, and decided to be tougher than they had been before on this.

What do you think, is YouTube being too conservative on this, or are they doing the right thing by strictly enforcing the copyrighted work?

Simple solution here… Use copyright free music, original music, or music which you have the rights to use in the background of your videos. YouTube videos are a great way to enhance visibility on Search Engines, and compliment an SEO campaign. Still low hanging fruit, anyone else have any success with SEO Videos on YouTube & other video sharing sites?