Live Streaming

[twotoedsloth]

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond or pass it along.

Facebook is now banning users posting concert videos, which is quite unfortunate. You can't even pay for this service, it's just gone now.

I'm using YouTube for the moment, but as it is also free, it is subject to the whims of Google.

Can anyone suggest a professional live streaming solution for us? Vimeo appears to tick all the boxes, but it's $95 USD a month. I can live with that if it works. Zoom would be great, but it won't work with our camera, even through OBS as suggested. Curiously, OBS passes video fine, but the audio is sputtering so badly you can't even determine what the source material is.

What we need to do is post videos of live concerts. We were happily using Facebook until they withdrew their service last week.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions,

Peter

[anna-marie music]

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond or pass it along.

Facebook is now banning users posting concert videos, which is quite unfortunate. You can't even pay for this service, it's just gone now.

I'm using YouTube for the moment, but as it is also free, it is subject to the whims of Google.

Can anyone suggest a professional live streaming solution for us? Vimeo appears to tick all the boxes, but it's $95 USD a month. I can live with that if it works. Zoom would be great, but it won't work with our camera, even through OBS as suggested. Curiously, OBS passes video fine, but the audio is sputtering so badly you can't even determine what the source material is.

What we need to do is post videos of live concerts. We were happily using Facebook until they withdrew their service last week.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions,

Peter

I've been using Zoom for vocal lessons and impromptu music performances over the last six months, and I've found it to work well I know you mentioned it won't work with your camera, though... what camera are you using, if you don't mind me asking?

[CS70]

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond or pass it along.

Facebook is now banning users posting concert videos, which is quite unfortunate. You can't even pay for this service, it's just gone now.

That is strange! I'm seeing several streaming gigs on facebook groups recorded in the last 2-3 days (since I've turned half a century) and a few days before as well..?

[Mike Stranks]

It may be about copyright.

Posting other people's material on the web via video - irrespective of platform - is a minefield. So concerts that are of songs nor composed by the artist/group are probably in breach unless you have a licence - and IME those licences are for specific genres (eg. Christian) off the back of other licences already held.

I am as legal as I can be with licences. Although I've now stopped posting video with non-original music on YouTube, every week I was getting flags and/or partial prohibitions. Maybe the Facebook action is because of the increase in copyright breaches. Sadly, I know of many people who, probably total unaware of what they're doing, have been posting copyright video and other material all over Facebook since lockdown began.

Of course, I don't know the O/P's situation so am not suggesting that he and his band are in breach of copyright, merely pointing out what may be behind the Facebook action.

I'm sound only now so my PRS licence means I am 100% legal.

[CS70]

Yes of course.. what I mean is that I have seen streaming concerts containing copyrighted material quite recently. And (as of my other post) there's a way to get stuff up there.

[Drew Stephenson]

I suspect it comes down to scale. If your streams generally garner a handful of viewers then you're not likely to trigger the thresholds. If, on the other hand, you're pulling in several hundred live viewers then you might well get blocked.
And the difficulty is that it probably won't matter if you're playing originals or covers, if the music is registered somewhere (which it probably is if you're pulling in that many fans), it will trigger the block. I believe there is a (convoluted) way of registering your own works with Facebook to avoid this but I don't know how to go about it.

[James Perrett]

I think Facebook actually changed their rules last year but there seem to have suddenly been a whole load of posts about this - particularly from one open mic group that I was invited to who have got themselves into a real panic about this. While it isn't exactly fake news, it isn't a new thing either.

[Sam Spoons]

The conversation has come up in the folk community where, during lockdown/covid, professional musicians have been playing live concerts streamed on FB. They have been informed that they can no longer do so, the reason given was something about FB not being a platform for professional music performances but for friends to have conversations (not surprisingly I can't find the post where he copied FB's response).

[twotoedsloth]

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond or pass it along.

Facebook is now banning users posting concert videos, which is quite unfortunate. You can't even pay for this service, it's just gone now.

I'm using YouTube for the moment, but as it is also free, it is subject to the whims of Google.

Can anyone suggest a professional live streaming solution for us? Vimeo appears to tick all the boxes, but it's $95 USD a month. I can live with that if it works. Zoom would be great, but it won't work with our camera, even through OBS as suggested. Curiously, OBS passes video fine, but the audio is sputtering so badly you can't even determine what the source material is.

What we need to do is post videos of live concerts. We were happily using Facebook until they withdrew their service last week.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions,

Peter

I've been using Zoom for vocal lessons and impromptu music performances over the last six months, and I've found it to work well I know you mentioned it won't work with your camera, though... what camera are you using, if you don't mind me asking?

Hello Anna-Marie,

Thanks for taking an interest!

The camera is a Sony PVSG BRC-X1000 4K PTZ and the video capture card is a Blackmagic Decklink Mini Recorder.

I'm hoping that Zoom will permit HD (1080p or 720p) streams in the near future, but to be safe I've been trying to find more professional solutions. In the mean time, YouTube appears to still be working, so I can use that for a couple of weeks, until we get something better in place.

Please let me know your thoughts, and if you have experience with streaming software.

Many thanks,

Peter

[Drew Stephenson]

Much chat about it amongst my online muso friends but only one actual case of someone being affected. Some ironically the only actual case I know of is for someone playing their own song...
Content moderation is hard, there will always be collateral damage, but I'm still waiting on some definitive examples of deliberate take downs targeting covers.