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EMI, YouTube Strike Music Video Deal
eldavojohn writes "Despite initial complaints of copyright infringement, EMI is now striking a deal with YouTube. Perhaps they've noticed that Warner's deal has boded well or they've finally come around to free marketing? From the article, "EMI and YouTube have agreed to work together to develop ways in which EMI-owned recordings can be incorporated into user generated content by YouTube users. News of the deal comes just 10 days after EMI agreed to be taken over by private equity group Terra Firma for £2.4bn." YouTube is slowly building a cadre of friends on the playground while Viacom continues to bully the new kid."
No, it wasn't $2.4bn, it was £2.4bn which makes about $4.75bn in USD. The idea could still be viable, but the price is double from what you present.
I've personally found quite a few songs on Youtube that I really liked and went and bought them on iTunes for $0.99 .
What a lot of people don't realize is that the quality on these videos suck, and there is currently no "easy" way to rip the audio off of these things. YouTube is in Mono for christ's sake! Even the "Higher Quality" video sites like Revver don't have all that great audio. So I don't see this cutting into the music industry's bottom line. Hell, if the users started saying what music they used in their videos it could sell a ton of music, especially from smaller bands.
My point is this. You could upload the entire Kelly Clarkson CD into individual Youtube videos with just a blank picture of Kelly Clarkson and I seriously doubt it would hurt sales (those videos don't get a ton of views anyways unless it is an unreleased/leaked copy... which if that happened would also probably sell a ton of records)
-nick
All of the major labels have signed deals with YouTube allowing music videos to be shown - EMI was the last. They all understand that music videos are free advertising.