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How to Download Videos from YouTube

Jared Moya — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:31:03 +0000

Guide to downloading your favorite videos from the world's most popular video-streaming site.

Everybody has their favorite YouTube videos. From the baby who only calms down when hears the music of hip hop artist the Notorious B.I.G. to the to the hilarious "Double Rainbow" guy there's a never a shortage of entertaining videos to watch. For many, however it'd be nice to be able to download YouTube videos so that one could watch them wherever or whenever they want. Being able to download YouTube videos would also mean you could store them just in case they're deleted from the site and lost forever. In a few easy steps I'll show you how to download YouTube videos so that they'll be yours forever.

1. Download and install Google Chrome.

It's one of the safest and fastest Internet browsers around, and offers many extensions to customize your browsing experience.

2. Install the YouTube Downloader extension.

This free browser extension allows you to download any YouTube video as a .MP3 file, a HD MP4 video file, or an FLV. It adds a convenient "Download" button to every YouTube page that you then scroll down to choose your desired download format. 3. Go to your favorite YouTube video.

4. Choose what format you want and select "Download."

And that's it. You're all done. If you're looking for how to download more than just YouTube videos we also have a guide to BitTorrent and how to download your favorite movies, TV shows, and music albums. Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com | @jaredmoya

ZeroPaid Interviews a Music Marketer

Drew Wilson — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:19:11 +0000

The ASCAP and NMPA story has generated quite a lot of attention and feedback here at ZeroPaid and one music marketer has decided to have a discussion with ZeroPaid about music and the internet in the wake of this story. We were happy to talk with him on the issue.

[Author's side note: In the wake of the NMPA escalating ASCAPs war on free culture, we've contacted two of the organizations targeted by the NMPA, the Consumer Electronics Association and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, but they did not return our requests for comment.] While our in-depth coverage on the war on free culture has generated significant feedback both directly to us or elsewhere around the web, that does leave one interesting question: where does that leave artists anyway? If ASCAP and record labels aren't actually acting in the best interests of artists these days, how do artists actually make a living anyway in an atmosphere where music is downloaded for free so commonly? Chris Cox, an artist marketer of Make Your Band Famous has been tackling these sorts of questions already. Cox passed along a video on his site where he discussed the current climate for music and how artists can still thrive in the era we live in today. While not exactly a 2 minute video, it does offer some interesting commentary in the way things are today and some possible solutions for artists. We caught up with Cox for an interview: ZeroPaid.com (ZP): What is it that you do for musicians and what has drawn you to this field? Chris Cox (CC): I help musicians market their music online, I like to think of myself as a marketing coach, I guess - give them the big picture (we're often so bogged down in the business of making music we can't see the wood for the trees), and give them hope. And then, for those who are still serious about it all once we've talked about that, go into the how-to's of it all - where to start marketing yourself, all the tricks and the right ways to do it all (without spending 10 years lost in the digital jungle), and how to do it time-effectively, because I know most artists at the level I'm most interested in helping work full-time jobs, or part-time jobs completely unrelated to their music careers, and we've got to find mobile ways to do this that don't involve massive chunks of time. I come from an internet marketing background. I started out a while back, and for a long time I helped small businesses market themselves online, I worked with some really great guys like Peter Carruthers (He runs "Business Warriors"), and got to learn a little. I like those guys as people, and I really identify with them and their problems, but in business relationships most small business owners are painful, at least as a marketing contractor. So then I started marketing some of my own websites. I have a couple of various sites (everything from African Art to random hobbies - at one stage we were even an affiliate for a site selling bongs - to one that worked out pretty well in the dating market). I'm from South Africa originally, and when I was in University there I had a lot of friends in bands and really into the music scene. When I went back last year I hung out with a lot of them again. And I couldn't believe some of the things I was hearing. For me, in my businesses if I have 10 000, 20 000 names on my email list, it's a pretty profitable business. But some of these guys had that - and more - and they were making a couple of hundred rand a month from that (double figures in US$'s). So immediately I thought, "holy crap, these guys have it all made, they have massive mailing lists, great relationships with fans - there's a massive opportunity here!". So we started chatting and exchanging ideas, I set some things up with them while I was there, and when I left I made them some dodgy videos telling them about ideas, things I do in my businesses and seeing if they'd apply there. And they told me a little about the music industry and we learnt from each other. And it's all just sort of spiralled from there. I never imagined so many people would be interested in what we're talking about. (Side note, in case you were wondering: I do play an instrument - very badly! - I play bass, but it's really just a hobby for me, marketing is my passion.) [Authors note: Rand is the currency of South Africa, so it's not a typo meant to say "Grand"] ZP: One thing that struck me about the video was that it seems to paint a rather bleak picture for artists, yet it's still rather hopeful for artists in terms of making money at the same time. Would you say the internet has been a positive or negative development for artists? CC: Well, that video has to give a bleak picture. Unfortunately it's long as it is - I would've loved to have made a 2hour documentary on all my thoughts, but nobody'd watch it! ;-) So I tried to get my main point across (perhaps less successfully than I would have liked - and I'm sure there'll be revisions on that video), which was that although things look similar to they've always looked, the record stores haven't closed yet, we still sell singles and albums at gigs, things have changed. The internet - in two ways has completely ripped apart the reality of the music industry. (1) P2P file sharing. And (2) Social networking. P2P is much demonised, and yes, it does hurt some big artists a lot, it's actually (I believe) facilitated a fantastic change that is all for the best for artists out there. For the first time, people we've never met are listening to and loving our music - and telling their friends about it. Considering most people fall in love with new artists because their friends introduce them to it, that's a pretty big deal! Suddenly we've let loose a billion evangelists bent on sharing messages. The job of the artist isn't to stop that - nobody can stop that now, I believe not even the RIAA and the big money of the record industry - the job of the artist is to harness that, and give those fans soundbites that spread especially well, stuff that tells their story and gets people interested, but also makes the "spreaders" look/feel good. So instead of driving the process, top-down, we're moving to a place where we harness the flat power that's already out there. ZP: You've suggested that there's a paradigm shift in terms of a business model for music creation, in your view, what has been this paradigm shift specifically? Are there things in this shift that some don't understand? CC: I think my previous answer actually touches on this a bit, and I'm in no way an expert on music creation, but here's my thoughts on two parts of the shift: 1- The power of free. I believe we're seeing that music isn’t holding its value. That value is dropping in the marketplace. Partly because of illegal downloads, and partly because of the ever-increasing competition and supply. But, people still like your music and want to listen to it. But unless they know it and love it already, they’re not going to buy it. There’s just too many other options out there, and if the other guy is giving his music away free and there’s no other way to tell yours is amazingly better, they’re going to go get his. Then they’ll put their names on his email list in exchange for some free songs. They’ll get to know him, and love him over time, and eventually they probably will buy his music. But you know what – if he’s smart he can sell them other things in addition to music, and make a lot more money from that relationship. I’m not saying “never try sell your music”, I’m saying “treat music sales income as a cherry on top” – it’s not the most profitable way to earn income from your fans, although it is a valid one. Just don’t rely on music alone unless you’ve already got 700 000 fans and you can afford not to be creative! The fact that “Free” is the de facto standard means we can fight the uphill battle and try draw blood from stone — or we can embrace it, and try to make the most of it. I think embracing it is far more productive and optimistic. So, our job then becomes creating "soundbite"-worthy marketing materials. (Which is easier than it sounds, especially when we realise part 2-lifestyle content is king, polished is good veneer, but too much will keep our real charm hidden) 2- We're not on a pedestal anymore. In surreptitious ways our world has become flatter. Media, and specifically social media, I think have pushed it that way. Sure, we see all of our idols polished marketing goodies. It's nice. But what we really connect with is seeing them in the gossip magazines and reality channels - seeing them as real people, who they are when they're not dressed to the nines or acting out a part. Hearing what their lives are actually like on twitter and their real views are on facebook. A lot of artists and music coaches are frightened of this. They have that old-fashioned view of "don't show weakness, they'll lose their respect for you." I don't want to tell anyone what to do on a personal level, but I do want to say that social media is all about friends and relationships. And we all have those friends and relations where we go out and everything is fine and we smile and it's all well mannered - those are acquaintances. Our real, deep, best-friends usually arise because we've been through some crap together. You can really build fantastic relationships with people on twitter and facebook and even myspace and all those social media -- but only if you're willing to relate a little bit of who you really are (and conversely take a little interest in who other people really are). It's a touch scary at first, but whenever I've seen it I've seen relationships grow and communities develop, and people rally around you when you're hurting and they shout with you when you're on top. And we do the same for them. It's quite a beautiful thing actually. It just involves getting over the idea that we have to be these distant demigods, and get our nails dirty down with the "common folk". ZP: The theme that I gleaned from your video is that artists need to focus on selling a lifestyle rather than simply music. Gene Simmons and Britney Spears certainly have been able to sell their lifestyle to the public (many artists sell T-shirts and other fan merchandise as well as make money through exclusive memberships), but is it possible for smaller non-A list artists to do the same? CC: Absolutely. As soon as you start getting fans who aren't just fans because they're you're friends, but who actually really like your music and what you're doing, you should be talking about and selling lifestyle. You can't sell lifestyle to your friends, because most times they either share it, or they actively choose not to share it. But with strangers (even "semi-strangers") you can - because you're an unknown entity to them. The first step is to suck them in, get them interested in you and fascinated by you, so they want to know what you're about. I'd suggest doing that with clever short segments, both music and message/lifestyle/personality based. Then when you're mates, you unveil a bit more, and a bit more -- and sure, you'll get a lot of people who don't get it, but the people that do, they will buy into everything you're doing hook, line and sinker; they'll want everything you produce on it. And it can be more powerful for small artists. Big cultural trends always start small, and there's something extremely powerful about an underground movement, something that "the mainstream" hasn't got yet. It builds tight communities and, often, evangelistic participants. So, I definitely feel if you set it up right, small artists 100% can do it, as well or better than bigger artists. The key is creating a culture and community centred around your lifestyle. ZP: The video you've passed along to us suggested that 95% of music is illegally downloaded. There's been a significant amount of debate surrounding statistics such as this. Some of the criticism was that the numbers are so hard to track, it's difficult to say for sure what the rate is outside of measuring a few public sites and maybe a few open protocols like Gnutella. A number of sources have suggested in the past that numbers like this is purely guesswork at best. Other critics like open source and open license critics say that independently produced content such as Creative Commons or GPL/GNU licensed material wind up counting as unauthorized downloads even though it's actually authorized. How did you find the statistic that 95% of content is illegally downloaded? CC: Well, you probably know more about this than I do. But I got my number from the IFPI, which has been likened to "the international equivalent of the RIAA", who released a report on Digital Music last year with that number. I won't lie to you, I'm not a statistician, and I can't promise the reliability of that number any more than anyone else can - but in the context of that video, where the purpose was to shake artists awake, I think it serves its purpose. Whether the number is really 60% or 99.5% - the point is they abound, and its had rapid growth, even since the demise of Napster/etc. And more than that, most of us know how to do it ourselves, or we know who to ask to get it done for us. Its not an underground activity. And that means, when people give you money for your music, they're not doing it because they don't have a choice about it. It isn't like Walmart where you pay before you leave with the goods, it's more like busking on the street. If they do choose to give you money it's because they liked you and wanted to support what you're doing. It's already built on a relationship. What I'm saying is, "use that relationship, learn how to build it further, learn how to monetise it - because that's the reality we're already in." ZP: One point you made was that artists would have to sell a lot of singles in order to make a living because singles often sell for 99 cents, so it might not be worth it to rely strictly on music sales. At the same time, there's a lot of research that would argue that digital music sales have been steadily increasing (not necessarily offsetting physical CD sales, but increasing nevertheless). Is the positive increase in digital music sales something positive artists shouldn't forget or is the increase currently not enough for artists? CC: I would never say "forget it". It's wonderful, and if I'm completely honest with you, some smaller artists are making more from their music than they might have made in a pre-digital era. But they're not ZP: Are you currently promoting any artists at this time? If so, which bands are you currently promoting? CC: No. I correspond with a number and their management, and chat and exchange thoughts and advice, but I don't actively promote artists personally. ZP: What do you see in the future of music? CC: I think it'll be a long while before music stops getting sold, but I do think the actual selling of music is going to become less and less profitable, at least in its "direct" form as we see it now. I think it'll end up becoming "premium" in various ways piracy can't reproduce. Uniquely packaged/bundled music, unique merch, access to the artist, artists endorsing things in new ways. And I think it'll become more and more niche. Instead of seeing gargantuan audiences like we have before, we're going to see more and more music that just appeals to quirky cliques. Of course, though, there'll always be a place for Lady Gaga and her ilk in our hearts when we've had 11 beers and we're out at the club... ZP: Do you have anything further to add? CC: I think I may very well have added far too much already... You can check out my blog at Christopher-Cox.com and guys can get my free stuff down at MakeYourBandFamous.com ZeroPaid would like to thank Cox for taking the time out of his busy schedule to chat with us. Update: If you are part of a business that has to do with promoting artists or otherwise have big ideas on how music can move forward in a digital era, feel free to contact us. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Radio Blog lets you play music for free and put tracks on MySpace

Jared Moya — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 17:50:17 +0000

After reporting on the site FineTune, which allows users to play and stream music tracks of their choice for free, I though I’d point out another site that allows you to do the same but, with less hassles and better features.

The site is called “radio.blog.club,” and is much easier and more convenient to use.

You simply type in a desired artist’s name and let the search engine do all the work.

In addition to the standard streaming feature, you can also embed the songs on your blog, MySpace page, or whatever other site you have access to.

It also has a “Hot Picks” feature that periodically compiles a “day” and “night” mix for you to listen to and hear artists you may otherwise never hear of.

Here’s what it looks like.

To show an example of the selection of music it offers I did a search query for the artist “Beck,” which I’m sure you all have heard of.

If you take a look at the results, the available tracks are pretty extensive, as it even has the rare track “Debra,” which I recommend for all those that have never heard it before.

The search returned well over 8 pages of tracks in fact, making for a diverse and fairly complete listing.

To add tracks to a playlist, you must first register of course. After registering simply select the “heart” icon of the track you wish to add and click “My Playlist.”

Returning to the main page and clicking on the “Jukebox” tab, you can see and play the playlist you created.

Yet, the site gets even better.

For those of you with blogs, or MySpace accounts, you can even embed each of the tracks into your site pages. It also allows you to customize the colors of the embedded music player.

If you take a look below I’ve customized the player’s colors and also highlighted the embedding code for you.

All in all it’s a pretty cool music streaming site and a little less cumbersome than FineTune.

The ability to embed the tracks on private sites and pages makes it all the much nicer.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT RADIO BLOG

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SOULXTC: “walkin’ the streets of P2P”

How to Rip Music From MySpace

Jared Moya — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 01:04:32 +0000

A quick step guide that will show you how to rip audio from MySpace and any other site that allows you to stream music on your PC.

There are many audio files available for playback on the venerable MySpace site yet, very few are available as downloads. There’s a number of ways to bypass this problem and I will cover two of best the methods here for you to use, the first being the easiest.

A. FreeMusicZilla
B. Audacity

FreeMusicZilla

1. Download and install FreeMusicZilla.

2. Open FreeMusicZilla, visit the desired MySpace page, and play the song you want to download. Whatever music track you select will then automatically be grabbed by FreeMusicZilla.

3. Select the grabbed music track and press the DOWNLOAD button. Your download should then begin. Make sure you begin downloading the track before the “Leech Timeout” counter runs out otherwise you’ll have to refresh the page.

EXAMPLE:

In the picture below I used the MySpace page of my buddy DJ Destructo Bunny. He’s a local up and coming hip-hop artist and I urge you to show some support if you like what you hear by either buying a track or two or by trying to check out one of his upcoming shows.

NOTE: FreeMusicZilla places your downloads in the location “C:downloads” by default.

Audacity

1. Download and install Audacity.

2. Now we need to install a LAME MP3 encoding driver so you can save tracks in the .mp3 format.

First download the driver, which you can do here. It’s in ZIP file format, so for those of you who are unfamiliar with what ZIP files are, there’s a guide here at Zeropaid you can take a look at.

Now drag and drop the driver in the location shown below, “C:/WINDOWS/system.”

3. Select “Wave Out Mix” as the audio recording device.

EXAMPLE:

Now it’s time to find some audio tracks to rip.

A good friend of mine is the lead-singer for a band called The Wagon here in San Diego and has been kind enough to allow me to use his band’s music on MySpace for this tutorial.

The image below is of the band’s page. Notice how the top two songs are available for download and the bottom two are not. We’re going to rip the second song from the top titled “End of Summer,” a personal favorite of mine not to mention timely with Summer drawing to a close.

Now with Audacity and the MySpace page open, click the “record button” on Audacity as shown below and then quickly press the “play button” on the End of Summer track. The track should begin to play and thereby be displayed as eloquent peaks and valleys of music in the Audacity track window.

When the song is finished playing press the “stop button” on Audacity. This will of course stop the recording and allow us to go back and edit the song.

The reason we need to edit the song is because there will be periods of silence in both the beginning and end of our recording. This silence is the delay in reaction time it took for us to both start and stop the process.

Using the scrollbar on the bottom of the track window, scroll back to the beginning of the recording as pictured below.

Using the mouse place your cursor as close to the beginning of the song as possible, then click and drag it all the way to the left and release. We have just selected the silence in the front of the track, which we will now discard by pressing the “delete button” on your keyboard.

Now we need to do the same thing for the end of the recording. To do so simply scroll to the end of the track and then select and delete the silence as you did with the beginning of the track. It’s that easy.

From the “File” tab select “Export as MP3″ as shown below.

It will then prompt you to select a name to save it as, which in this case will be “End of Summer.”

After clicking on the “Save” tab, it will then ask you to “locate the LAME MP3 encoder” we just installed.

Hopefully you remember where we just put it but, just in case I’ll show you where to go.

Once this is done it’ll begin to encode the track and turn it into an MP3, the music file type necessary to play on your iPod or whatever media player of choice.

And with this ladies and gentleman the track is ready to go.

Admittedly, configuring the Audacity program to perform as necessary initially takes a little while, but once this is done future recordings or “ripping” of audio files will be a breeze.

Universal v. MySpace: Is It Really About Music Piracy?

Jared Moya — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 19:20:00 +0000

Universal Music Group’s recently filed lawsuit against MySpace.com has been generating some Internet speculation about the underlying reasons prompting the behemoth music publisher to go after the social-networking site.

Bloggers, analysts, and intellectual property attorneys have noted that Universal might have motives beyond quashing piracy, especially because MySpace has been insisting that it is following proper copyright procedures.

"Universal’s beef isn’t about piracy," said IDC analyst John Gantz. "Part of this is because bands can potentially make a living without signing up with a record label. So any kind of sand in the gears to delay that is in Universal’s best interest."

The outcome of the case could set a major precedent for a battle between content producers and social-networking sites, and also spark new discussions about the level of liability such sites might have when users swap content.

“FineTune” lets you play and hear any song you want for FREE

Jared Moya — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 03:59:15 +0000

If your looking for a site that allows you to play any music track you want for free then look no further.

FineTune is an interesting site that allows users to create playlists using tracks from artists they search for and select, or by simply listening to the playlists already created by others. In addition, it will “auto-fill” your playlist with tracks from artists that it thinks you will like if your playlist has less than the standard 45 track size. This feature makes for a good way to hear music from artists that may otherwise never listen to.

They have a wide variety of artists to choose from and its not limited to unsigned independent artists like a lot of the other music preview sites out there.

You can either simply select to play a single song or an entire album for any individual artist, then also using them to create a quick playlist by compiling songs from different albums or artists to hear as well.

Below you can see a quick search I did for the “Beastie Boys.”

Notice the results that were returned. It has 19 albums to choose from, almost every one that I’ve ever heard of including some of the more rare albums that they have released.

It’s like this for almost every artist that I searched for. They truly have a wide and definitive selection of artist discographies to choose from.

Here’s an overview of the process:

You have an option of buying each track or album using links to iTunes or Amazon.com.

I tried to see how easy it would be to rip the audio from each track but, unfortunately it proved to be more of a pain than what it’s worth. This site is strictly of the play and go sort, the type that’s good for compiling some songs to listen to while your at work or otherwise away from your home music library.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT FINETUNE

SOULXTC: “walkin’ the streets of P2P”

MySpace Begins Music Filtering Initiative, Taps Gracenote

Jared Moya — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 16:06:02 +0000

Music is an incredibly integral part of the MySpace experience, and a high percentage of profile pages feature popular songs. Most of those tracks are copyrighted, and streamed without permission. Tackling the thorny issue, MySpace has now tapped audio identification experts Gracenote to filter unauthorized content. Moving forward, MySpace will proactively identify and block copyrighted songs, and remove the accounts of repeat violators. “MySpace is staunchly committed to protecting artists’ rights – whether those artists are on major labels or are independent acts,” said Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of the social networking giant. “This is another important step we’re taking to ensure artists control the content they create.”

The move was probably inevitable, especially following a string of lawsuits and tough statements from Universal Music Group. Earlier, UMG chairman Doug Morris pointed to major copyright violations at both YouTube and MySpace. “We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars,” Morris said during a Merrill Lynch conference in September. “How we deal with these companies will be revealed shortly.” That may have stirred deep-pocketed MySpace owner News Corp., which has been sensitive about disrupting the carefully-created MySpace ecosystem. Now, with the latest move, users may be confronted with an abrupt surprise. Profile pages are an identity statement, and a streaming audio or video track is a huge part of that expression.

Music Downloading’s New Deal

Jared Moya — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 16:00:33 +0000

The threat of recording industry lawsuits has certainly given pause to peer-to-peer music file-sharing services. Few have dared show their servers on U.S. soil since the Supreme Court in 2005 ruled Grokster and Morpheus could be sued, declaring open season on companies that enable users to swap copyrighted files. On Oct. 30, even News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace—a social-networking site known for allowing all manner of freedoms—cracked down on the use of copyrighted music, licensing technology from Gracenote that allows the site to review and block songs uploaded to the site.

But the practice of what the recording industry considers illegal music downloading is alive and thriving, thanks to lax copyright protections abroad and the experience of a generation that grew up swapping songs over superfast Internet connections. And lately it’s finding a new lifeline: a business model.”

This year, 300 million to 500 million files were pirated each day, according to Artistdirect, a New York company that tracks illegal downloads through its MediaDefender service, and in some cases, attempts to block them. “The user base has been chased around the Internet because the companies keep getting shut down…but this is a really stubborn, persistent phenomenon,” says Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, an online media measurement firm

Video Web sites rush to fulfill viewer demand

Jared Moya — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 18:06:22 +0000

Put it up and watch what happens — that’s the mantra of executives at leading Internet news and video sites as they try to keep tabs on how content is evolving in the era of YouTube and MySpace.

“Since you can’t predict it, you sort of have to just let it get out there,” Alan Citron, general manager of TMZ.com, said Tuesday during a panel discussion featuring Internet and creative executives at the Digital Hollywood conference in Santa Monica.

“There’s a huge appetite for this stuff,” he added, referring to the celebrity-driven news that TMZ features. “People want to see people as they actually are in public. This stuff

Citron also said that any content has value on the Web as long as it is interesting.

Joe Michaels, director business development at MSN Entertainment, emphasized the interactive nature of content in the digital realm and the prevalence of multitasking behavior.

MySpace founder charges News Corp with undervaluing social networking giant

Jared Moya — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 16:19:33 +0000

The founder of MySpace has called for an enquiry into the social networking site’s sale to News Corp., labelling it ‘one of the largest mergers and acquisitions scandals in US history’.

Brad Greenspan, who made $47 million from the 2005 deal, claims on his Free MySpace website that Rupert Murdoch’s media company paid much less then they knew MySpace was worth. News Corp. coughed up $580 million; Greenspan believes it could be valued at $20 billion within a few years.

‘Deliberate steps were taken to withhold and manipulate information; money was improperly gained and laws were broken,’ he wrote. ‘I expect as the authorities get their arms around what happened that this transaction will be unwound and MySpace will be independent.’

Greenspan has filed a lawsuit against Intermix, MySpace’s former owner, and venturer capitalist firm VantagePoint Venture Partners, alleging that News Corp acquired Intermix at an unfair price.