More Bad News For YouTube
Dec 22nd, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Featured Story, Internet TV, Streaming Video, Video 
Google got some more bad news today about YouTube.Â
Not only is Warner Music Group pulling all its videos off YouTube – it’s in talks to create an alternate to YouTube for music videos.Â
According to a report at Silicon Alley Insider:
A source familiar with the negotiations tells us that Warner and the three other majors — Sony BMG, EMI, and Universal Music Group — all think they could do better creating their own music video Web destinations and are in early talks about forming a joint venture similar in concept to Hulu, the increasingly popular TV-on-the-Web joint venture from News Corp and NBC Unviersal.
A joint venture is just one possiblity each label is considering. Our source said there have been many brain-storming sessions. If we were to contribute to those, we’d say that if the labels do create a joint venture, we think it’ll probably be popular like Hulu, but frought with similar problems. Namely, it’ll be stuck with hosting bills and not allowed to keep most its ad revenue, which we’re not sure there will be that much of, if YouTube’s $25,000 checks are any indication.
This is bad news for YouTube, because it’s likely to have another competitor, like Hulu, offering professionally produced content that’s advertiser friendly.Â
It’s also bad news for YouTube users, because it increases the likelihood that videos will get yanked from the site because of the music they contain.Â
If this trend continues, the pressure will only increase for Google to find a way to either move towards mainstream content or find a way to make money on user-generated videos.
YouTube can benefit more from indy folks putting up their own videos which is how the site became so popular in the first place. The flash video world is getting bigger and there is enough room for a WB stream service just like Hulu. YouTube users can collectively continue to make a great service work with their own videos assuming they use good metadata. There are many not so great videos on YouTube but you can find great ones. I’m all about using YouTube for my own videos and for finding new ones. It doesn’t bother me that WB is leaving and it doesn’t bother me they’ll want items yanked for using their music. Producers need to find other music for their videos besides copyright music. I have found the synchronization rights issue (among others) not to be a roadblock but a pointer for me to find a solution that is more specific to my voice. My products come out better when I have to develop a workaround or find ways to use my existing material to make the vision work.
John –
Thanks for the feedback!
I think that producers like you are a lot better off steering towards things like Creative Commons licensed music or creating your own music for video.
For the vast majority of YouTube users, though, increased copyright monitoring is probably going to be a hassle.
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And this is supposed to be bad because?
Let them. It will give some competition to a little part of Google. Big deal.
I’ll take it less seriously when indy producers finally realize that they don’t need the big firms to produce and promote them (because they don’t anyway.)
The first time an indy artist/producer put a pitch for a project an is able to sell the idea to people who would want to hear/see it, the whole house of card will get blown away.
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