A commentator or two have read my own mind and posted complaints in a previous thread regarding Gaither’s move to create and put officially approved content on a Vevo page. This is something I’ve been planning to discuss myself.
On one hand, I don’t want to diss Gaither Vevo too loudly, since they are making a generous amount of high def. content available for viewers to enjoy. There’s a wealth of material from numerous homecomings and videos, much more than you’ll find other music companies publicly offering. For that, I’m grateful.
Unfortunately, Vevo controls its own wallpaper and “featured” videos which may show up in the sidebar as you’re trying to enjoy your dose of Gaithers. Needless to say, these are often in very bad taste, and may sometimes even contain foul language in the song titles alone. One can try to go to full screen to escape, but some computers will lower the picture quality or slow down considerably in response. In any case, that’s not the sort of the thing one should be forced to think about or deal with when you’re simply browsing Youtube for gospel music.
What makes this doubly awkward is that in conjunction with creating this official channel, EMI has been systematically removing Gaither clips uploaded by other Youtube users on their non-Vevo accounts. This means that if one previously had the option of directing a friend to a non-Vevo link for a given video (with no ugly wallpaper and profane related videos to distract), that option is no longer available.
I realize that there are copyright issues here, and my intent is not to get into the thick of all that. But I think it’s fair to say that if the way you’re circulating your clips makes it harder for people to watch and enjoy, you may be better off from a marketing perspective leaving unofficially posted clips alone.
Just a thought for the higher-up who’s probably not reading this.
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