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YouTube to Offer Every Music Video Ever Created?
Klaidas writes "BBC reports that YouTube is aiming to have every music video ever created within 18 months and offer them free of charge to its users
"Right now we're trying to very quickly determine how and what the model is to distribute this content and we're very aggressive in assisting the labels in trying to get the content on to YouTube," said Mr Chen."
"Right now we're trying to very quickly determine how and what the model is to distribute this content and we're very aggressive in assisting the labels in trying to get the content on to YouTube," said Mr Chen."
Not gonna happen.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Oh wait, nevermind, they don't play videos anymore. At least the younger generation will have some opportunity to imagine what MTV was like when it was good (MHO).
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They should use the Tom Sawyer method. People value what they have to pay for far more than what they can get for free. As soon as you charge them for the generous service of hosting their music videos, it suddenly becomes something they'll want a lot more. Then they'll start fighting for the priviledge of paying you. Otherwise, they'll just want money.
Wow, they can license the content, give it away for free, and lose even MORE money! They must be going for a world record burn rate.
They already have all the good ones ever created. All 5 of them.
"every music video ever created within 18 months"
Do you get to choose which 18 month period you will select from? I'm hoping for something like Jul 2003 - Dec 2004: no P(uff) D(a/i)iddy videos to worry about, and I might pick up a cool Peter Gabriel video or two.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Upon closer inspection, half of them are composed of the same three anime clips edited and re-edited together.
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We can dance if we want to We can leave your friends behind 'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance Well they're no friends of mine Soon to be the number one requested video.
Yes, they could make this be a paid service, but they would probably make a lot more money off of advertising. If they have every music video then it will be the default place for most people to go when they want to watch a music video. Then if they offer a play-list type feature to store all of your favorites that you can just play through, it would be great. This could draw in a lot of people which would make a perfect place to post advertisements.
It also shouldn't be too much of a problem to get past the RIAA. Look at Yahoos music videos. As long as there isn't a way for people to download them and keep them for personal use, I don't see that there would be a problem (but what do I know, if there is a way to make money the RIAA will be all over it). I think that they could have a really good thing starting here.
Obviously the RIAA will try to license the content to YouTube for a huge fee. But even the record labels know that music videos are like advertisements for songs. They make far more money selling records than videos. Free videos give their music more exposure, which means more sales.
Developers: We can use your help.
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It is interesting that there is no mention of the fact that a Youtube grey area exists already, where there are 1) a lot of copyright-violating videos on Youtube currently, and that 2) many of these videos--but oddly not all--were removed by Youtube in a mass cleansing a few months ago.
Why is it, Youtube has videos from many very popular and very lawsuit-happy bands (such as Kiss), but only *some* of their videos, and *not* always just the ones that are the arguably less copyright-infringing ones? In other words, often many of the videos that weren't intentionly taken down for legal reasons are the ones that are seemingly most illegal, ala the "legitimate MTV-style" videos.
It smells of payola and soforth. But who knows.
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santanaya
Except that selling music videos is not a main revenue stream for record labels. Their money is made selling CDs, and music videos are little more than advertisements for songs. Imagine the following scenario: Your buddy sends a YouTube link to a funny music vid. You play the video a few times, and the song gets stuck in your head. There is now a much greater chance that you'll go out and buy the album that the song is on. MTV used to be a great advertising venue for the music industry, but execs have probably come to realise that people in their teens and twenties, a prime music-buying demographic, are no longer watching television with any frequency. YouTube is a great venue for reaching this demographic. YouTube is an even better match because, unlike Apple's music video downloads, YouTube makes its videos difficult for the average user to download. Even when downloaded, the file is in the uncommon .FLV format, which will need to be re-encoded to be played on any portable media player. For those reasons, downloads from YouTube will not be a viable replacement for purchasing the album to the vast majority of consumers.
To summarize:
1. Good advertising venue for a key demographic.
2. Not threatening as a replacement to album purchases.
YouTube killed the video star.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Some time ago, Pitchfork did 100 Awesome Music Videos, with one of their criteria being that the videos be available on YouTube. Those videos occasionally get yanked, as I discovered when I started doing something similar every Friday. I wouldn't mind if YouTube could present those legally.
Check out http://www.mtv.com/overdrive
It's pretty good. Thousands of videos. Quality is as good as what you usually find on YouTube.
Not sure why nobody knows about this. I mean, at 37, I'm now outside MTV's target demographic (but I was 14 when I GOT MY MTV in 1983, the weekend that the Thriller video was released in it's 14-minute glory.)
But anyway, since MY generation was the one that actually watched videos on MTV for about 6 hours a day instead of listening to the radio, I'd think they'd find a way to market this to the 30-45 year age groups. *shrug*
With the money they save in not paying "moistened bints" to prance around half-naked in front of a camera (or around the singer/group) performing the actual song, they can discount the cost of the CD (which subsidises the making of the videos in the first place) and force the artiste to sell CDs based on quality of musical content, not on how well the video induces wet dreams in the male teenage audience...
Don't get me wrong - I find the female form as interesting as much as every other red-blooded heterosexual monogamous male but if I want visual stimulation, then I'll put on the TV or a DVD, thanks very much.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
How long do you think it will be before that changes? It wasn't too long ago that there was no such thing as a portable native .mp3 player. If the format becomes popular, the hardware will support it. (Of course I still doubt that would hurt album sales, since the audio quality on YouTube is horrible.)
Actually, MTV solicits all videos, and they play what they want - which of course just happens to be all the hitmakers because that drives the advertising dollars / hype factory.
As a former employee of MTV, I can say unequivocably that nobody at MTV gets paid to show this video over that video. But there is a lot of pressure to, say, "show this new artist video or we won't give you an exclusive interview with Madonna/Ludacris/Green Day." There is a lot of bartering more than outright payola. Influence for influence.
And, yes, MTV will pay any artist $1 for the right to use their music in the background of their shows in perpetuity forever and ever et cetera et cetera. A lot of bands take that deal; bigger names than I would have thought, especially in the metal/indie world. It's not really selling out, but it's definitely a validation of the system.