iVideoSongs.com - Giles Will Show You

iVideoSongs.com is a site that recently released its beta version, where music enthusiasts can learn to play instruments (guitar, keyboards, drums) through video tutorials by top artists like Alex Lifeson, Steve Rieck, John McEuen, Danny Grady and Giles Martin himself. In the videos (30-60 minutes long in average) you can take a look at these performers playing the songs, and explaining how to do it step by step. Video tutorials are to be found under several categories, styles and music genres, and in order to watch them, you have to pay $5-10, and then you get to download them; the videos cover songs that require different levels of skills, but before paying for them you can preview the video, read an excerpt, and take a look at the sign that indicates whether it is for basic skill level, intermediate or high. The site features a tutorials section from where you can download free videos on basic skills, for all three features instruments.

“Jamming on the Rush song "Tom Sawyer" is a 10. Having Alex Lifeson of Rush show you how to play it, is one louder.





That's what we do. iVideosongs is all about this new kind of musical experience, a personal connection that happens when you learn your favorite songs from the original artists who wrote and performed those songs. The artists are legends and legends in the making. We also have some titles featuring killer studio musicians, because not every artist is involved yet and some others have passed to the great gig in the sky. In every case the songs are complete, accurate and shot in stunning, lush, high definition video. The combination rocks”.

The virtues of having the artists that composed and played songs as music instructors seems quite self evident to me as the reason that might make iVideoSongs.com a killer startup.

Piracy should definitely not discourage people from releasing original material to the internet, even if that material might be very expensive to produce. However, it definitely is a risk they should bear in mind if they hope their business to be mildly successful. What exactly is their strategy to deal with copyright law infringement?