Am I breaking the law by sharing my own collection of music videos with other visitors to the YouTube website?

The short answer to this question is yes, but over the last couple of weeks the longer answer has become more intriguing. YouTube has become an indispensable resource for committed timewasters, with the 100 million videos watched every day accounting for 60% of all videos watched online. Generous estimates put the value of YouTube at $1.5bn, but it’s also estimated that 90% of its content on violates copyright laws. And with an upper limit of 10 minutes on the length of uploaded videos, it’s the music business that’s bearing the brunt. Indeed, YouTube founder Steve Chen recently stated that he envisages the site hosting every music video ever created within 18 months. However, two weeks ago it was reported that Universal, one of the four major record labels, were preparing to file a lawsuit against YouTube, and bloggers began glumly predicting the imminent demise of the service. Then, in a move which surprised many, the rival Warner Music Group responded by giving YouTube carte blanche to host its video material, and permission for any Warner material to be used in home-made productions. The upshot of this is that if you want to upload a clip of yourself miming to a Mariah Carey song, Universal won’t be happy. But do the same to a James Blunt song, and Warner will, theoretically, be right behind you.

The current situation neatly encapsulates the argument surrounding copyright and the internet. Universal believes that they are owed “tens of millions of dollars” in royalties by YouTube, while Warner thinks that the potential exposure for their artists more than makes up for any royalty losses. In this week’s inbox most readers have, perhaps predictably, weighed in on the side of YouTube, for three main reasons. Firstly, as it’s far from straightforward to download the clips, you watch them online and they never actually end up in your possession. Secondly, the video quality is so inferior to DVD that, for readers like Rachael Bateson, YouTube merely provides a fuzzy reminder to go out and buy a version not compromised by pixellated visuals and stuttering playback. Thirdly, many of the clips hosted by YouTube simply can’t be found anywhere else. “You could wait 1,000 years for MTV to play Derek Jarman’s video for Marc Almond’s “Tenderness Is A Weakness,” points out Al Scott, “but I – along with 1,021 other people – have watched it on YouTube.” As Martin Urlwin point out regarding the threatened lawsuit, “It’s a business decision, and whether or not it’s a good one, it’s Universal’s to make.” Whether they end up regretting that decision remains to be seen.