A week after Universal Music CEO branded sites such as YouTube as “copyright infringers”, the biggest video sharing site has reached an agreement with Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) to distribute and license its copyrighted songs and other material through the service.
Under this, WMG is making available all its videos on YouTube and will allow for users to use the videos in their own creations. YouTube is developing an automated system to digitally identify copyrighted music and video uploaded by its users, and will then give a revenue share from any ads that appear alongside those videos, if their owners have agreements with YouTube and opt for that rather than having the videos removed. This system will start by the end of this year. The deal with extend beyond WMG after this.
The irony: the deal is only with big media companies (music labels, TV networks and movie studios), not with indie or individual content producers.
AP: To make the deal happen, YouTube developed a royalty-tracking system that will detect when homemade videos are using copyrighted material. YouTube says the technology will enable Warner Music to review the video and decide whether it wants to approve or reject it.
FT: Warner Music last month became the first music label to partner with YouTube by launching a “brand channel” where users can view branded content on a specially designed YouTube page. The channel, which was set up to promote sales of “Paris”, the debut album by Paris Hilton, the celebrity hotel heiress, was funded in part by advertisements for a television series by Fox Broadcasting.
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