Owned by Google, the search engine that most of us use, YouTube is the de facto standard for streaming video. When you upload properly tagged videos to YouTube, they show up well in searches.
You'd think that because of the SEO advantages church should always use the free live-streaming that YouTube offers. Why should they pay for hosting on another provider when this free system exists?
Unfortunately, there are hidden costs that might just convince you to pay for a solution instead of using this one.
There's a time cost.
While the live events option is free for YouTube account holders “in good standing”, it's not designed for use for regularly scheduled events. Each event that you create on YouTube has to be scheduled individually. There just isn't a good way to say to the interface that, “We're going to be streaming every Sunday morning at 11:00 am.”
Assuming you'd like a static URL where you can send people to watch the service when it's live, you have a problem. Since it's designed for individual events (and thus each event has a unique url), you need to re-embed each service you have on your website. Forget to do it and the people who normally show up there won't see a the current week.
Google isn't known for customer service, either. You can't just send an email to a person who handles odd issues. There are video tutorials, help files, scripts, etc., but talking to a real human is difficult to do. If you have a problem, you might not be able to find a solution, at least not quickly.
There's a potential legal cost.
When I first tried live-streaming with YouTube, I didn't realize a bigger potential problem — copyright.
On March 13, 2007, Viacom filed a lawsuit against Google and YouTube alleging copyright infringement. Google won that lawsuit (although it's still in appeal).
As a result, they saw a vulnerability in the video sharing site. People were uploading copyrighted works.
You get what you pay for…and some things do have hidden costs...
Now, an automatic system alerts copyright holders when there are suspected violations. Perhaps this has prevented further lawsuits, but it has other results.
What does this have to do with a church that live-streams its service? Many churches are unintentionally violating copyright law every week they live-stream.
Some, if not all, of the music your church uses on a weekly basis is still under copyright, even some songs you wouldn't expect, like “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” While most hymns are public domain, almost no worship music is.
I'm told that live performance of copyrighted works in a church service is considered “fair-use”. Live streaming is different; it isn't considered to be covered by the live performance exception.
In response to these challenges, at least two licenses have been created. CCLI has one which covers Christian music. Church Copyright Solutions has another which covers all music in the ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC libraries, including secular works.
Those licenses are a hidden cost to live-streaming in general.
The fact that it's automated causes other complications, though.
The first step in this process is for the copyright owner (or an authorized agent) to flag a video. The owner of the account (your church) needs to acknowledge the violation or dispute it.
Then the agent replies. If you acknowledge it, the copyright agent can choose to remove the video or add advertising (with revenue directed to the owner).
Ideally, this should be a case where the church would state that they have a license and the copyright owner would agree.
I know of at least one account where, despite having written permission from the original rights holder, the agent that administers the copyright continued to assert that the content was a violation.
What happens when a cautious agent claims that the video is still in violation? Despite the church having a license or some other form of written permission from the copyright owner, an agent could push back. YouTube allows you to object again, but this is where it gets hairy.
If you're found to be in violation, your video may be taken down and a strike applied to your account. When you get enough strikes, your account could be terminated.
Now imagine that you've used YouTube for years and have hundreds of videos in your account. You've also spent time building an audience and a community there. Perhaps you've got the videos elsewhere, but what about the people who've subscribed to your account and look forward to your church's videos? They're out of luck.
In that case, the only way to fight it is in court. That's a cost most churches wouldn't be willing to take on.
I've talked to at least one church that only streams the sermon to avoid this problem. Another church I know routinely objects, showing their license, and so far has been fine. The one I mentioned above is trying to decide what to do.
This isn't to say that you couldn't run into the same problem with another streaming provider. Instead, the fact that you can't talk to anyone about it is what makes it more likely to happen.
In a lot of ways, we're still at the beginning of seeing what will happen, so this situation could change at any time. New laws are always being written. Content owners change strategies.
Maybe there will be a toll-free help line announced at the next Google press conference. Maybe an update to YouTube will make scheduling and embedding easier.
Maybe a lot of things will change, but the old saying is still true. You get what you pay for…and some things do have hidden costs, even “free” live-streaming from YouTube. Are the SEO benefits enough to balance the risks? Maybe, but the lure of “free” shouldn't be.
