YouTube opens large library of live recordings together with Music Vault

Thanks to an agreement with Music Vault, YouTube has added more than 13,000 concert recordings to its video archive. The live recordings go back fifty years and are good for a total of two thousand hours of video.

The collection includes old concert recordings by artists such as Bob Dylan, James Brown, Ray Charles and The Grateful Dead, as well as images of contemporary artists to view for free. Much old footage on tape has been restored by Music Vault employees before being sent to YouTube’s servers. This work would have taken two years.

The Music Vault team says it has partnered with YouTube because it wants to share its image library with the largest possible audience. Music Vault employees will also put together weekly playlists on Google’s video portal, produce new video material and put videos in the spotlight every day.

YouTube has been trying to be more than just a user-uploaded video site for several years now. For example, it came with paid channels and wants to start a music streaming service soon.