A video hosting service allows individual end users to upload and share personal, business, or royalty-free videos and to watch them legally. Users generally will upload via the hosting service's website, mobile or desktop applications or APIs. The type of video content uploaded can be anything from short video clips and digital audio files all the way to full-length TV shows and movies. The video host stores the video on its server offers individual different types of embed codes or links to allow others to view this video. The website, mainly used as the video hosting website, is usually called the video sharing website. Some video hosting services offer copyrighted TV shows, movies and music for which they have not obtained the necessary copyright approvals.
In the 2010s, with the increasing prevalence of technology and the Internet in everyday life, video hosting services serve as a portal to different forms of entertainment (comedy, shows, games, or music), news, documentaries and educational videos. Content may be either both user-generated, amateur clips or commercial products. The entertainment industry uses this medium to release music and videos, movies and television shows directly to the public. Since many users do not have unlimited web space, either as a paid service, or through an ISP offering, video hosting services are becoming increasingly popular, especially with the explosion in popularity of blogs, internet forums, and other interactive pages. The mass market for camera phones and smartphones has increased the supply of user-generated video. Traditional methods of personal video distribution, such as making a DVD to show to friends at home, are unsuited to the low resolution and high volume of camera phone clips. In contrast, current broadband Internet connections are well suited to serving the quality of video shot on mobile phones. Most people do not own web servers, and this has created demand for user-generated video content hosting.