Late last year, Warner Music Group and YouTube failed to come to an agreement regarding the compensation of Warner and its employees. Because of this, Warner decided to pull of its music from YouTube immediately. Basically, it was a classic case of the major label wanting more money for its employees' product.
Up until today, with an agreement finally being made, there was no way for fans to legally see brand new videos from their favorite artists such as Jay-Z, Green Day, Cassie, Eric Clapton, Diddy, Fall Out Boy, Guns n' Roses, etc. According to the article, Warner accounts for one-fifth of the total revenue for the recording industry (Atlantic Records, one of Warner's subsidiaries, is the number one record label in the U.S. according to SoundScan)
The main issue in the dispute was the value of the music videos, which are produced by the label and/or its employees. Warner saw huge value in the videos on YouTube because not only did they attract fans to the website, but they also attracted advertisers who saw potential customers in the viewers and invested money into YouTube. Warner saw it as unfair because they were not being paid any of the money that advertisers paid YouTube to advertise to Warner's customers drawn to YouTube because of the product that Warner provided for free, until today.
With CD sales declining, Warner and YouTube see this as a win-win situation. Warner plans on allowing the music to be put back on YouTube before the year is over. They also plan to attract even more viewers with brand new high definition videos, links to artist websites and new merchandise available to consumers. So, in a sense Warner has become its own YouTube advertiser.
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I think this is great! I watch very little TV, and don't even have cable. The few things I do like to watch, I catch on line, usually a few days after original airing. This means that now I will be able to easily (and legally) find the video for "That one new song on the radio. You know, the one by those guys that sang that other song."
ReplyDeleteTime Warner is being smart. It is essential to these television networks to look to online corporations as a new source of income.With the online world taking over even cable this is the smartest move they could have made!
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree that this is a smart move. Youtube generates millions of hits a day. Time Warner has a pretty impressive roster, and people are going to want to see new videos from these artists. It really is a win-win situation. As long as a link is provided to the artist's site, then I think that Warner Music Group made a good decision.
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