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."

Now, maybe

[Travoltus]

EMI's approach to copyright will be based more on Terra Firma than from planet Obsolete?

Re:Now, maybe

[Shads]

You know in general, I was kinda thinking the same thing about EMI, they're the first ones to do the Non-DRM iTunes thing, they're making agreements with youtube, etc... is it really possible that they've got someone over there that understands a bit of whats going on and doesn't have their head shoved a half foot up their ass?

Re:

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

No, that's not possible. The marketing department must have killed key people in the night and replaced them with dopplegangers. It's the only sane solution to this insanity.

Actually

[pavon]

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.

slowing building??

[pembo13]

Even I noticed that one.

he got it right actually

[game kid]

YouTube didn't set up mass extractors and power generators before building its cadre of friends, so of course building is slowing.

Good week for YouTube

[Tibor the Hun]

Apple is also starting to integrate it into AppleTV. (?TV)
ref [apple.com]
I wonder if it has anything to do with their recent commitment to strip DRM off iTunes. Maybe they're realizing that open-ness is good for business?

Bullying the new kid?

[aussie_a]

Sorry, but when you're owned by Google you don't get to try to pass yourself off as the "small kid that bullies pick on." Youtube, now with Google's backing, is old hat, with many more newer kids coming onto the block.

Re:

[timmarhy]

compared to media companys like viacom and emi, google and youtube are jnr burgers ok?

Re:Bullying the new kid?

[aussie_a]

Considering Google has been going head to head against big companies for a while now, no, they're not jr burgers. After all, Microsoft is new compared with some really old companies, so should we call their latest endeavour "the small kid that bullies pick on"? Of course not, that would be silly. Just as its silly to say it about Google.

Re:Bullying the new kid?

[rtb61]

Did you even RTFA, and see how much they paid for EMI and then compared that to the market value of google. Seriously the googlites need to give up on pity the poor little google, it is has log since run out of it's use by date, privacy invasive, marketdroid plus, viral marketing champions comes more to mind now.

Viacom most probably doesn't want to agree with google because it wants to compete with google in the long run, not only in video distribution but likely in search as well as a web destination portal.

As for the EMI deal that could simply be a way for major shareholders to indirectly sell off the company with out the appearance of fire sale prices from insiders and major shareholders selling off all their stock (crashing to earth comes to mind).

Independently published music as well as a growing preference for live music (people are overdosing on downloaded digital and are seeking more opportunities for live interaction) are slowly but surely killing the old publishing beasts. Those with the skills will shift their focus and grow 'Viacom' those with out will get swallowed up along the way.

Besides video is driven by links from other web sites and not by the site itself, unless the site can offer unique content, not just countless, mindless, juvenile variations upon a theme (I would include most music videos in that category).

Besides everybody knows the new kid on the block will be an invisible search engine, that offers it services to other media outlets to provide them with full featured web search, caching and neutral news search etc. with only a portion of the costs, and then shares the resulting marketing revenue (initial target market, mid sized news outlets), i.e. not one google competitor but thousands, oddly enough likely to be staffed with under paid, disgruntled, ex google coders ;).

Re:

[timmarhy]

"how much they paid for EMI and then compared that to the market value of google"

big fucking deal? that has no bearing on my comment about google being a jnr burger compared to other older media companys

"Viacom most probably doesn't want to agree with google because it wants to compete with google in the long run, not only in video distribution but likely in search as well as a web destination portal."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... wait a minute... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

1998 called they want their

Re:

[Ohreally_factor]

Viacom is partnering with Joost (and might even be an investor in Joost, I'm not entirely sure). Sounds like they see themselves in competition with Google. (The other bit about Viacom competing in search was ludicrous, I'll agree with you there. And the only "destination portals" I'm interested in are vaginas.)

That said, I'm not sure how much Viacom gets it. One of their properties, VH-1, tried to create a web 2.0 comedy show called Acceptable TV [acceptable.tv]. The show was pretty good, but the website, which was integr

DRM Free EMI on iTunes and Now this

[imemyself]

It seems like EMI is, or is atleast trying to be, one of the least anti-technology major record labels. Hopefully these sort of things will start a trend, or at least encourage people to demand that the others in the entertainment industry get with it already and stop fighting every new technology that comes around.

Re:

[Synchis]

EMI will be the trend setter. Other labels will watch and wait to see what happens to EMI's profits and sales figures. If EMI is doing something right, we should see increases in the numbers. It seems like EMI is just testing the water... try something that the masses have been saying all along woudl increase sales, and see if it increases sales. If in fact the recent moves by EMI *does* increase sales figures, then the other labels will follow suit.

*BUT* if EMI goes to the extent of releasing DRM free musi

I hate to ask

[RobertM1968]

But how does this affect EMI's relationship with Sony and the RIAA, and how would this affect (possible) actions from the RIAA?

Not trying to troll or start a war, just curious as I cant find anything that discusses this aspect anywhere online.

Re:

[jombeewoof]

I would imagine the RIAA would take a "If you're not with us, you're against us" attitude toward companies that are not trying to strip consumers of their rights.

Re:

[RobertM1968]

Right... but if EMI is (was?) an RIAA member company, how will that affect the way RIAA operates with content published by EMI? Domehow I have a feeling that the RIAA doesnt call up EMI, Sony, etc and say "Hey, so and so just downloaded 'The Music We Publish Sucks' by Another Runofthemill Artist... should we sue them on your behalf? Or perhaps EMI, Sony, etc contact the RIAA and have them institute suits...

So/Or does this mean that EMI will soon no longer be an RIAA company? (Speculation or facts wanted)

Re:

[timmarhy]

i don't think RIAA would have much of anything to say publicly. EMI can strike deals with who ever it wants and even RIAA know this.

besides, RIAA are only capable of bullying sick grandmothers and small children.

That's hardly fair

[TodMinuit]

YouTube is slowing building a cadre of friends on the playground while Viacom continues to bully the new kid.

That's hardly a fare statement. It's more like you either do business with YouTube or... nothing. They're untouchable, even though they are violating copyright law on such a large scale.

Re:

[timmarhy]

i wouldn't be suprised if a big stick gets taken to youtube soon over it. no one is untouchable

Re:

[Xuranova]

Mr. Gates laughs at that thought.

$2.4bn?

[MassiveForces]

Considering they paid up nearly as much for Youtube, Google might consider buying a record label to have a seat at the RIAA table. Think of the do no evil they could do... "I propose our business model should follow a stick-it-on-youtube drm free approach, all in favour say I" Google EMI "I" Google BMG "I" Google Virgin "I" Google...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Youtube will not be killed corporately

[smegged]

Google has too much invested in Youtube to allow any corporate action to kill it. Until Viacom realise this they are on the losing side.

EMI appear to be begrudgingly accepting that their antiquated business models need some reform. It is only a matter of time before the other labels follow suit.

Youtube is re-encoding all content to H264

[swissfondue]

Macbidouille (French) [macbidouille.com] is mentioning that Youtube is encoding new content to H264 and will re-encode all the old content as well later. Therefore Youtube is doing the work for Apple.

as the old saying goes...

[daddyrief]

if you can't beat em, join em ;)

This is common sense

[simong]

Irrespective of the arguments around property and payment for music, 90% of music videos are promotional items for the songs that they are selling and such the record labels should be promoting exposure wherever they can. Now that MTV has almost stopped showing videos altogether they should be looking for other routes of exposure. I'm certainly not going to pay £2 to see an advert on my phone.

Re:

[tkrotchko]

I'd heard reports a while back that the record companies are still kinda of irritated over the whole MTV thing. As you recall, when MTV started, the record companies gave MTV the music videos free because it was great promotion for the music at the time. And of course it was, MTV came along just at the right time. We used to watch just for hours because there was nothing quite like that on TV at the time. Ultimately MTV grew into quite an impressive piece of property, and the record companies to thi

Re:This is common sense (MTV)

[WillAffleckUW]

I'd heard reports a while back that the record companies are still kinda of irritated over the whole MTV thing.

Why? VH1 plays music, MTV just has reality TV shows and other drek. I can't see why record companies would object to a non-music channel showing music. ...

Great business decision... for once.

[NickCatal]

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)

Re:

[Odin_Tiger]

There are numerous scripts, programs, and even Firefox extensions that make extracting a YouTube or Google Video vid into a format you can save to and play from your desktop (flv, avi, mpg, flash, ...) a cakewalk. From there it's as easy as extracting audio from any other file on your hard drive of one of those formats. 2 minutes flexing your Google-Fu should find you all you need to extract audio from YouTube or Google Video.

In related news, Facebook now has iLike app

[WillAffleckUW]

which includes YouTube vids you can put on your Profile (and queue up to 5 videos or songs you or your friends can play).