# Whole albums on YouTube for free, is it too good to be true? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 15, 2015, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621 "2015-11-15T06:18:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Myglaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/21 "2015-11-16T19:36:34Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > And YouTube doesn’t put up with ad blockers. You gotta lower your shields to play. Oh no you don’t! ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/22 "2015-11-16T20:35:34Z")
Maybe YouTube changed. Was running Firefox ad blocker on the Mac. Went to YouTube, and they said no go with ad blocker. I had to disable it to enjoy YouTube. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/23 "2015-11-16T20:41:06Z")
Adblock Plus on Firefox. No fuss from Youtube. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/24 "2015-11-16T21:25:14Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > Bottom line, when I listen to music on YouTube, are the music artists receiving something? I’ve Googled “auto generated you tube music” and have found a number of artists who had unauthorized posting of their music on YouTube. Every single one reported they were not getting royalties at all. All of them were self released or on small indie labels; whether it’s different for big name artists whose labels have agreements, I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/25 "2015-11-17T00:01:15Z")
I was hoping the artists received some money. I don’t want to see starving artists. I appreciate what they do for us. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/26 "2015-11-18T20:12:22Z")
In a related matter, if you have a Google Play has been offering many “Best of…” albums that are totally free. [http://www.androidauthority.com/free-music-google-play-644116/](http://www.androidauthority.com/free-music-google-play-644116/) I added a few a couple of weeks ago, so not sure if this is still available. It seems that they rotate what they offer. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/27 "2015-11-19T03:48:01Z")
I listen to albums on YouTube and buy the CD for the ones I like. YouTube tends to get laggy and freeze up on me. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2015, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/28 "2015-11-20T05:20:18Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I forgot to mention something else which may account for the license being granted. AFAIK on Android, Youtube is designed to pause if the user takes it out of focus, e.g. by running another app or turning off the display. Given that YouTube was designed for AV streaming, rather than just music or audio, this is to be expected. I assume it’s the same on iOS. So although you do get to listen to the albums, you miss out on the a lot of the convenience and flexibility you would enjoy if you were listening to something that you paid to download. Audio in the background is one of the features they are promising if you get YouTube Red. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/29 "2015-11-21T02:45:04Z")
YouTube hasn’t changed its broadcast sample rate, has it? Used to be any music from there would drop decibels like a lead brick once frequency hit 10K. (Use Audacity freq analysis to check for this) That’s a sure sign of 128 or 196K mp3 encoding. OK if you’ve got crummy speakers, but it’s going to sound like a 7 transistor AM radio when you play the stuff over a decent sound system. Sure, you can upsample the track to 320Kb/s, but that just adds more bad data points to an already bad recording. You don’t gain any quality doing that. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621/30 "2015-11-21T13:26:31Z")
**Squink** has it … the quality of sound from the YouTube videos is so piss-poor no one thinks to enforce copyright laws … I guess the theory is if you like the music, but hate the drop-outs, then you’ll go pay the money at whatever service for a proper copy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-albums-on-youtube-for-free-is-it-too-good-to-be-true/737621.md?page=1)