Comments on YouTube

I only play with YouTube from time to time, but whenever I do pay it a visit I am astounded by what I can find there. Being a great music fan it is always fun to track down obscure music videos from bands I like, as well as some live concert footage which is easily missed on TV. It was a unique experience last year getting home from the Pixies gig at the Palace to find clips from that very show already online. It is also a way of reliving some memorable 'pop culture' happenings, for example see the post below about Roy and H.G. Nelson's sports coverage.

I work at a secondary school and one of the issues we have is whether to allow free use of YouTube. The two problems are (a) some content is unsuitable for minors, and (b) the significant bandwidth that video consumes. Teachers would like to be able to use some useful relevant content on the web for teaching, but if we have a whole class trying to hit the same video the network will grind to a halt. Heavy use of bandwidth-intensive resources like this will also add to our internet service bill. Our compromise at the moment is to allow teachers to download the clips out of teaching hours to show during class times. Of course, the other thorny question is one of copyright, which we OR YouTube do not own.