Warner Opens Video Library To YouTube

Oxen writes, "From the article, 'Warner Music has agreed to make its library of music videos available to YouTube, marking the first time that an established record company has agreed to make its content library available to the user-generated media company. Under the agreement, YouTube users will have full access to videos from Warner artists. They will also be permitted to incorporate material from those videos into their own clips, which are then uploaded to YouTube. Warner and YouTube will share advertising revenue sold in connection with the video content.' This is in contrast to how Universal is handling the situation."

Initiative

So this must be part of their every music video ever [arstechnica.com] initiative?

Under the agreement, YouTube users will have full access to videos from Warner artists.

Wait, you mean you can put this media out there online for free and you can still turn a profit? That's insane. That goes against everything I've ever been told by the RIAA & MPAA.

I'm very happy and excited about this. I hope that this turns out to be a lucrative move for Warner and, more importantly, the artists. Sites like Youtube combined with this relatively new kind of business model could represent an alternative for distributing writing, songs & video. It's nice to see a company adapt to the fans instead of forcing it vice versa through thousands of lawsuits.

This is in contrast to how Universal is handling the situation.

Uh, yeah, Universal isn't interested in Youtube or MySpace distributing their content ... but at least they're going to put it online anyway [slashdot.org].

Re:

It's nice to see a company adapt to the fans. . .

. . .who have been screaming for more advertising.

KFG

What about Fox?

If I understand right, Fox bought Myspace and YouTube, or Myspace bought YouTube and Fox bought Myspace or some damn thing. Point is, what is Fox going to do with its collection of media. Follow the lead of Warner I hope. And why did Warner deal with YouTube instead of rolling out it's own service (lots of eyeballs good for media companies) [getdemocracy.com] or partnering with Google's video service or buy something like Blip.tv [blip.tv].
[tinfoil hat]I think something might be going on here[/tinfoil hat]
Yeah, I know it's Warner music and Fox is mostly non music, but still they have gots ons of stuff rotting away in vaults somewhere, you would think earning something from it would be easier than trying to sue/arrest/pester/etc. people for distributing stuff no longer on the air.



Get a curse for your web site [i-curse.com]

Re:

Fox bought Myspace. YouTube is still independent IIRC. In the short term, partnering with YouTube actually makes a lot of sense for Warner because it probably costs them a lot less to digitize their video collection than it would take to roll out a new service or buy out another site. Even if they were to have their own site, they'd be fighting an uphill battle to steal eyeballs from YouTube.

Re:Initiative

There are two solutions to the internet dilema for old media companies:

1. How do we stop/control it?
2. How do we make money of it?

Looks like Warner are the first one to pick the correct grail. Universal choose poorly and will melt in some cheesy 80's special effects. The video is on YouTube aparently...

Re:

I'm sure Universal will melt away, now that they can't rely on the massive profits from the profit-sharing of Google Ads.

If this proves to be a viable business opportunity, there's no reason Univeral can't change their mind later. At this time, they don't see the profit behind it. It's their videos and their decision, and they have spent a great deal more time and expertise anaylzing the issue than a bunch of Slashdot dittoheads.

Um, aren't music videos just adverts for the band?

In which case I'd expect them to be very keen for youtube to distribute them.

 

Yup..

Thats what they were before the RIAA found out they could not only make money through them by increasing exposure, but by charging for the actual video itself!

I wonder what MTV would say if studio asked for an enomorous amount of money to be able to show their videos, instead of throwing it at MTV to get more air time.

Re:Yup..

I wonder what MTV would say if studio asked for an enomorous amount of money to be able to show their videos, instead of throwing it at MTV to get more air time.

MTV shows videos!?

Re:Um, aren't music videos just adverts for the ba

Only if you want people to listen to the music. Universal have taken a different approach, they feel that if no-one hears the music then no-one will pirate it.

Re:

Universal have taken a different approach, they feel that if no-one hears the music then no-one will pirate it.

Which is a refreshing change from making content which is so bad that nobody wants to pirate it.

Re:Um, aren't music videos just adverts for the ba

Absolutely. However, the part that I find most interesting is this:

> They will also be permitted incorporate material from those videos
> into their own clips, which are then uploaded to YouTube.

It looks like they'll be allowing people to remix videos, and presumably by extension the songs. This is a very big deal indeed, although I'm not sure from the content-free story whether there's some limitation saying that the results can *only* be uploaded to YouTube.

P

They will remove offensive video clips.

Ahh yes, I can just see all the videos now that the 16 year old video nuts recut Madonna videos and make her do things offensive.

It will also allow YouTube to remove user-generated clips based on Warner material that the company deems offensive.

Madonna would NEVER do anything offensive.

Re:They will remove offensive video clips.

They don't remove offensive clips. They generally just hide them with a warning.

Take this for example (unless you work in a korean office your probably safe enough)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jo0jxwXrAU [youtube.com]

I flagged it as offensive as its a porn advert, instead they left it and now it just asks to verify your age.

Re:They will remove offensive video clips.

I find it more interesting that clip dug up views about:
  Korean morality ( Those stuffy Christians over there shouldn't have fetishes! )
  Racism ( I won't even repeat the claims. )
  etc

The fun part is youtube has more and more non-english content. I've started to notice Flicker has several Japanese only comments too. I remember when "we lost Orkut" happened, and everyone should know why that happened. Orkut was a closed invite system. The population that invited the most could reach a critical mass with their language, and drown out the rest. Thankfully these newer web sites are open, so you can see various languages mixing. I find it refreshing to see several languages in one thread, and translations for the non native speakers of the videos / photos.
 

One small step for music company ...

... one giant leap for musickind.

Re:One small step for music company ...

Considering how quickly VH-1 Classic has gone down the tubes, this is good news. How much does it suck to have a website ursurp a digital cable network as the place to be for music videos?

At last...

An article on YRO that's actually a positive piece of news.
Outside, the pigs are flying.

Submitted for you approval...

Rod Serling must be rolling over in his grave.

Huzzah, a media company that gets it

This could be a major step change in the way media companies handle the internet. Holding onto copyright and soaking consumers each time the formats change has been lucrative for a while now but it's as obsolete a business model as buying caned food and then using the shop's [ideafinder.com]can opener to get at it before taking the cans home. After failing to produce a DRM system that works, failing to stop the tide of piracy with law suits and faced with falling sales Warner is making the smart move and getting what money it can. More power to their elbow.

Re:

It's a nice step in the right direction, but remember one thing: music videos are supposed to be adverts for the artists and songs that they feature.

Re:

Now if only Warner Bros. Pictures would stop throwing hissy fits about classic WB cartoon shorts [wikipedia.org] that have entered the public domain showing up on YouTube. Almost every Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon short made before 1948 entered the public domain because of copyright technicalities not followed by Associated Artists Productions in the 1950s. However, Time-Warner raised a ruckus about their presence on the site, and YouTube pulled all of them. Copyright has been renewed on the versions of the shorts

This is a huge crack in the dike!

It's almost like a Creative Commons license with a catch. For Warner to agree to this will cause the rest of the media robber barrons to either follow suit or have their catalogs decimated by compared lack of popularity.

It's not a perfect deal. But it's a huge start. Bravo to the brains that figured this one out. It's a huge first step.

What form of advertising I wonder?

Will it be the kind that Firefox+Adblock can block :)

or will it be the kind that annoys you for 30 seconds at the beginning of each clip :(

Could this be bad?

I don't want to crap in anyone's Monday morning cornflakes, but could this possibly have negative impacts on Youtube as we know it? It's fairly easy to extract the FLV file from Youtube's streaming player, I think there's even a Firefox plugin. The FLV can then be converted to whatever clean video format you like, and archived for offline use. If Warner gets tied up with Youtube will they be okay with that, or will they perhaps force Youtube to "upgrade" to something with DRM?