How YouTube Could Make Money with Viacom, some thoughts
July 23rd, 2008 by Dave AllenAs CNet reports today, Hollywood and YouTube may be edging towards their own version of Pax Romana. Meanwhile, beyond the learned walls of the law courts and Google’s battle with Viacom, we here at Social Cache have been scratching our heads over Viacom’s position.
Obviously Viacom is up in arms over what it argues is copyright infringement whenever one of its artists’ songs are used in a user-generated video. Their lawyers are even arguing that in most cases they want to set aside the notion of fair use. That in itself is ridiculous as in a lot of circumstances Viacom has stepped over the edge of copyright boundaries. In 2007 Viacom sent YouTube 100,000 takedown notices! And as this video from the EFF points out, many of those videos that Viacom had asked YouTube to remove, were not infringing anyone’s copyright.
We ourselves received a takedown notice and had a video removed from YouTube. The video was of one of our numerous snowboarding expeditions to Mt Hood and it included a clip of a song by the group White Zombie. We could have argued that under the law if we had used the music for parody, for comment, for criticism, for news reporting or for non-commercial use then we’d be in the clear. In this instance it was the latter – non-commercial use. We couldn’t be bothered, we weren’t that attached to the video and anyway, like millions of other folks, we put up videos at an alarming rate. Here’s our latest.
So here’s the Nemo and Social Cash POV. By removing our video Viacom denied thousands of people the pleasure of hearing a White Zombie song. One of its own artists! And no money was changing hands. One solution – Viacom should provide YouTube with a license from a roster of its artists who agree that their music can be used in a video for non-commercial use. In return YouTube provides its users with a simple license that allows users to add music from these artists to their amateur videos for non-commercial use for a small fee of, perhaps $3.00. Now Viacom and its artists get a share of this revenue, YouTube users won’t receive takedown notices, and Viacom can go a long way to recouping its, no doubt, millions of dollars it is spending on these lawsuits.
You’re welcome. Let me know why it won’t work….
Meanwhile over at MySpace, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has a business that’s built on the backs of thousands of unsigned musicians. Who is looking out for them?
Tags: Copyrights, DMCA, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Google, Takedowns, Viacom, YouTube
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
I am a professional photographer by trade and the stock photography business model might be a model to look at. Imagine a cross between Pay Pal and Getty images.
The You Tube director goes on the site and has an I-Tunes type appilication where they can search for the music they want to license for their video. They click on the band, in this case, White Zombie, a menu rolls down giving them a choice of use. The markets that are suitable for the use of the song. They have a Pay Pal account with You Tube and the license fees is paid. Fees could range from $1 fro Moms showing videos of their kids dancing to Micheal Jackson to thousands of dollars for brands using the song to promote their service or prodcut. The band makes money they would other wise never see, You Tube make revenue, Pay Pal gets a cut, the label gets paid to “police” the song usage plus the new revenue they need. All this wrapped in a You Tube video with good music. Sounds like a win/ win/ win for everyone.
The Honor system.
The fine print on the license would be all legal similar to this Getty images verbage:
THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT (THE “AGREEMENT”) BETWEEN LICENSEE AND A SUBSIDIARY OF GETTY IMAGES, INC. (“GETTY IMAGES”). THIS AGREEMENT APPLIES TO LICENSES ISSUED VIA THE WEB AND VIA LOCAL SALES REPRESENTATIVES, AND IS APPLICABLE TO ONLINE, DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL DELIVERY OF LICENSED MATERIAL
If a video director mis represents his usage there is other legal language that sounds like so…..If you violate our intellectual property you may be liable for damages….yadda, yadda and pay damages up to $150,000 and go to jail…Blah, blah I am a lawyer and you should be scared.
The big labels will toss a poor (victim) director under the bus to make the case that all others need to be honest or ELSE. The true Amercian way of doing business and all. After that it is a new business model for all to enjoy.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I don’t see it working because 99% of youtube content creators would 1) never be able to guess that Viacom is responsible for licensing White Zombie, 2) aren’t going to take the time to research who they should ask for permission from for every piece of media they appropriate in their videos, 3) would rather just use a different song than pay any kind of fee for some quick anime fan-sub garbage they made out of boredom while avoiding their parents crys for them to finish their homework.
re: myspace, the bands that choose to use it as a marketing tool (and it has to be the most amazing free marketing a band could ever hope for) have accepted that news corp. are going to make a few dollars off of banner ads placed on their page and it probably doesn’t bother them too much.
just my $.02
August 5th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
[...] Post: How YouTube Could Make Some Money with Viacom Share this Post: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
August 15th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[...] Related Post: How YouTube Could Make Some Money with Viacom [...]