I found an interesting article on MSNBC.com, entitled "YouTube, Universal partner in music video site". According to the article, YouTube and Unviersal Music Group are teaming up on a music video venture. They are going to have about 10,000 videos available to watch for free, thanks to advertising. Their website for this is going to be Vevo.com, on which they will be sharing all the revenue from the ads. Evenutally, there will buttons linking the videos to a buyable location (which will be Amazon.com Inc and Apple Inc's iTunes). As the article states, a good portion all of music revenues from these sites go to the labels.
Why this is a really good idea: YouTube is already very popular amoung all sorts of ages. It is the place you go to find clips of movies, funny videos, or even music videos. So why not dedicate a whole site to music videos? Universal Music already offers site visitors a chance to watch videos as well. Universal has 19 different labels under them right now, some of which including A&M/Octone, Interscope Geffen A&M, Motown Records, UMG Nashville and Verve Music Group.
However, YouTube has had some problems with record labels that resulted recently in Warner Music disattaching themselves from YouTube. Warner Music pulled all of their music off of YouTube since they did not feel they received fair payments for themselves or their songwriters and artists. Another bad deal for YouTube is the $1 billion lawsuit that Viacom Inc. has against them because of infringement rights. Viacom Inc. runs BET Networks, MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures.
For YouTube, they may want to get their act straightened up if this deal will run smoothly for both YouTube and Universal. Although, according to the article Universal will be the big spenders in this whole venture, I doubt they want to lose out on this whole ordeal. But overall, I think this idea is really cool, its not always easy for people to get to a tv and watch MTV or VH1, for example, so this will help out a lot for those who like to watch music videos.
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That's interesting. I knew that YouTube had some issues perviously and that they were not so popular in the music industry for their mistakes.I think this will be a good deal for both parteners. Hopefully it is successful.
ReplyDeleteI am not a big YouTube watcher, but from what I do know about it, I am surprised that more companies or labels have not sued them. It would appear that you can find anything on YouTube, but who knows if those things have permission to be there…
ReplyDeleteIf I was a top executive at Universal, I would want to think long and hard before signing a partnership agreement with YouTube. If the stuff hits the fan at YouTube, karma says that it will also hit the fans at Universal because they are now linked on this venture.
It sounds like a great idea to have this music video site. I just think a lot of thought needs to go into who the best partners for this job really are.
I think this sounds like a great idea. I think if or when they do finalize this and it gets up and running, that it will be a big hit. Like you said in your blog, YouTube already has a tremendous fan base so if they use YouTube as an attraction to get people to go to their site I think it will work. Even if YouTube is getting sued for over a billion dollars, they will still be a huge attraction and I don't think it will slow them down one bit.
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