A video hosting service allows a person to upload a video to her servers, and it is kept either indefinitely or for a stated period of time. There are several advantages to using a video host, including not being responsible for bandwidth, guaranteed up-time, and convenience. This service has grown in popularity due to the increased use of mobile phones that can capture video and automatically upload it to a website. It is also used for video blogging, with the blogger uploading the videos to a video host and linking to it rather than uploading it to his or her own server. By doing this, the blogger uses less bandwidth with his or her web hosting company, which is often limited.
Once a person has taken a video, he or she can upload it to a website by locating the file on the computer and giving the website the path to it. Depending on the quality of the video, its size, and the user’s Internet connection, uploading a video can take seconds or hours. This process is often simplified when using a smartphone, usually with the phone being pre-programmed to upload to a certain website. Either way, however, the user is normally given a link to the video to share with friends and family once the upload is complete. On a smart phone, this link can often easily be emailed or instant messaged to contacts in the user’s address book.
The advantages of video hosting can vary, but its primary advantage is that the user does not have to maintain his or her own servers to share videos. Having one’s own servers is usually not expensive, but does usually require a monthly fee. In addition, if a lot of videos are uploaded or if the files are especially large due to the size and quality of the video, video hosting without a hosting company that is supported by ads can be costly.
Over the years, both film and music companies have voiced concerns about copyright issues regarding video hosting. Some popular and very well-known video hosting companies allow anyone to upload anything and simply moderate after the fact. This leads to copyrighted music, movies, and potentially offensive content being displayed to the world until a moderator removes it. Even with moderation, some copyrighted content remains because no one reports it or it is uploaded by different people faster than the mods can remove it.