MUSICVIDEO

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings.

Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the 1980s, when MTV (Music Television)'s format was based around them.

Music videos are often called promo videos or simply promos, due to the fact that they are usually promotional devices. Sometimes, music videos are termed short-form music videos to distinguish them from full length movies pertaining to music.

In the 1980s, the term "rock video" was often used to describe this form of entertainment, although the term has fallen into disuse.

Music videos can accommodate all styles of filmmaking, including animation, live action films, documentaries, and non-narrative, abstract film.

Terry Clark

The earliest purveyors of music videos on the internet were members of IRC-based groups who took the time to record music videos as they appeared on television, then digitizing them and exchanging the .mpg files via IRC channels.

DOWNLOAD MUSIC VIDEOS

As broadband Internet access has become available more widely, various initiatives have been made to capitalize on the continued interest in music videos. MTV itself now provides streams of artists' music videos, while AOL's recently launched AOL Music features a vast collection of advertising supported downloadable videos.

The internet has become the primary growth income market for Record Company produced music videos. At its launch, Apple's iTunes Store provided a section of free music videos in high quality compression to be watched via the iTunes application. More recently the iTunes Store has begun selling music videos for use on Apple's iPod with video playback capability.

A major problem with the movement towards YouTube and other social video platforms is that most users aren't aware of the underlying legal issues involved in uploading music video content. The RIAA has recently issued cease-and-desist letters to YouTube users to prevent single users from sharing videos, which are the property of the music labels. After the YouTube/Google merger the biggest player of the online video market assured to work towards a solution of the dilemma by paying royalties through a bulk agreement with the major record labels.

Anyway, the problem will continue as not all labels share the same policy in regards to music videos. Some welcome the development and upload music videos to various online outlets themselves (as free advertising) while other companies tend to regard music videos as a product which can't be given away for free.