The latest news from YouTube is that users can now upload fifteen minute videos; an extra five minutes than previously. This will come as great news to all those people who felt stifled by the ten minute limit; now these folk can really tell the world what they think. Personally, I find it difficult to talk for five minutes on a video so it is unlikely to make much difference to my life. On the other hand it will mean having to click less when watching longer videos that have been broken down into smaller parts.
Apparently the reason for YouTube’s generosity is that they now feel that their copyright protection is strong enough to trust people with an extra five minutes of film time. Apparently new controls mean that people are less likely to upload copyrighted material and so they can be trusted that little bit more. I’m not sure how true all this is, but I trust that the good folk at YouTube know what they are doing. I don’t really understand how previously only being able to post ten minutes of copyrighted material at a time made that much difference.
I think the real good thing about the extra five minutes is that it might encourage official sources to release more good material on YouTube. Maybe the BBC channel or Discovery will make the most of this and offer a much better selection. After all, we are used to watching things in fifteen minute slots in the UK with the ITV and C4 advertisement breaks. On the other hand it also means that boring people will get to add an extra five minutes onto their monologues about whatever it is they think they are expert on. Overall though, the extra five minutes should benefit the site.
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