YouTube to Feature Video from Universal, Sony, CBS
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by Mike Zazaian October 9, 2006 - 12:39pm, 4 Comments
The agreement will make video and music content from Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Group and CBS to be available for download. YouTube’s announcement didn’t specify what the cost of the content will be, or exactly how the studios will be compensated for their content, but some sort of pay-per-play system seems to be the goal. The studios will also reserve the right to approve the use of copyrighted content published on YouTube. From an article by Candace Lombardi of cnet news:
The Sony BMG deal will be similar to that with UMG, allowing both artist music and video content to be used with permission. YouTube’s deal with CBS will allow users to purchase content such as news, sports and prime-time programming from its CBS brand television channels. It also includes technology that will allow CBS to find unauthorized CBS content on YouTube and remove it, or choose to keep the content up and stream advertising next to it.
The deal comes just a few weeks after YouTube inked a similar deal with Warner Brothers that granted YouTube users the right to use video and music from the Warner Music Group in their own videos and artistic works. Like the deals with UMG, Sony and CBS, Warner retained the right to remove user content that uses its media in an inappropriate manner.
Unlike the other three, however, Warner’s content, primarily music videos and interviews, was released to users free of cost.
Warner’s approach seems more conducive to the free-sharing philosophy emboded by YouTube. Warner is likely aiming for a more advertising-oriented campaign on YouTube, while new deals with the three aforementioned studios seek direct profit through sales. And while media from UMG, Sony and CBS is sure to get some publicity from its YouTube venture, YouTube’s 35 million daily users might find it difficult to adjust to paid content on a site that thrives on its freedom and openness.
[via cnet]
Youtube is one of the most popular video sharing sites on the net. A year ago, co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were in between jobs, a pair of twentysomething geeks running up big credit card debts as they tooled around a garage trying to develop an easy way for people to share homemade videos on the Web.
Hurley says, “I do not want to work hard. I want to live a soft life. I want to sleep for three hours every afternoon and nine hours at night. I do not want to stay awake the whole day so that I can get a few 350 grand at the end of each month. I do not want my talents to be exploited by a ruthless employer. I am a lazy man. That is why I choose to live off the net. I am too lethargic to try and survive in the real world. That is why I did not bother to hold down a job though my credit card debt soared.
“On the net things are handed to me by Google. The idea of youtube came to me from a dinner party with a half-dozen friends in the greatest city in the world San Francisco. It was January, 2005, and we couldnt figure out a good solution. Sending the clips around by e-mail was a bust: The e-mails kept getting rejected because they were so big. Posting the videos online was a headache, too. So we created a site and put in basic software.
“What I and Steve came up with is a Web site, now called YouTube, that has become an Internet phenomenon. Show the honey and the bees will flock to it. We worked for about six hours each week for two months designing youtube. We had the idea to create a community around the video.
“Once that was done we knew that tons of millions of dollars would just flow into our laps after the Google buyour. We will not have to work hard. In the old economy you have to work really hard for a lousy promotion which might give you a few more grand if your employer is very generous. You have to get up 3early in the morning and run for a few grand. On the net you can become rich without working hard.
“On the net once you have the idea you just sit at home and then magic will happen. That is exactly what happened at Paypal, Skype, MySpace, Facebook. The basic, simple to design software that I and Chen designed allows people to post almost anything they like on YouTube in minutes. People can jack off on porn. Now we are sitting at home retired early after the Google buyout. Content has been handed to us on a silver platter. We do not have to slog hard to create content like a poorly paid online journalist who makes a lousy 450k each year. We do not have to experience daily financial pressure
because our site does not get enough readers. We are not under pressure to meet deadlines. We get up at ten in the morning and consider that to be hard work. We do not have to work for ten llllong years. That is the privilege of those in the old economy. they take the tube to go to work for a bum 350,000 dollar paycheck at the end of the month.
“We have it easy. The reason why we never held a job for more than a year was because we felt that a rope was attached to out necks. We would have had to stay chained in an office with four walls. It is such a pain to get up in the morning and run for the sake of a few 350 milli grand at the end of the month. The content that we offer is free. That is easy for us to that as we do not have to work to create it. Copyrighted work is there for our users to copy and paste as that is work which we have the right to copy. Other content
comes from common folk wanting to share stuff.
“Revenues will come from advertising. The net is a click and eyeballs business. Google understands this. The clicks come from youtube’s millions of eyeballs that we have not worked for. It is unearned traffic. We do not have to sweat and bleed for it. That is the privilege of poorly paid online journalists. I do not have to worry about losing my job as my content does not get get enough page views. I do not have to take the initiative about my own life. I do not have to discipline myself. I do not have to worry about having a career. The millions of youtube.com visitors will ensure that this will never happen. I can simply focus on trying to build relationships with my tall, tough women friends in San Francisco. We hang out together. We work out together. We sleep in the afternoon together.”
sivasankaran