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Universal Music Group to start charging for music videos

3 February 2005 20:44 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 9 comments

Music video's have long been seen as a promotional tool of the music industry, but now the suited men and women over at Universal Music Group intend to turn this promotional tool into a profit tool by charging Internet companies and Satellite services for streaming their music videos. The other major record labels are expected to follow which means this will be a major change for the entertainment industry and a nuisance for some Internet based companies. AOL music and Yahoo's Launch are two examples of services that were setup around streaming free music videos to Internet users.

In the early 1980's the major record labels made a decision to basically allow MTV completely free access to their music videos. However, now Universal see the increasing number of Satellite companies and Internet music companies as a new form of an on-demand medium and are determined to make sure the labels profit from it. Software giant Microsoft has already agreed to pay Universal to use their music videos. "The digital music and video market is still in its infancy, and the business models are continuing to evolve," Rob Bennett, senior director of MSN Entertainment, said in a statement. "As an industry we are all figuring this out together, and it's our job at MSN Music to provide a great platform to bring content owners together with consumers."

Music services have already received notifications of this new policy. The policy will also cover live performances of Universal artists. Of course, Universal had to think of a way to force companies to adapt to this new policy, and they did, they will refuse to buy any advertising on any site that doesn't make a deal under the new policy. The record companies have been taking advantage of the massive amount of promotion on-demand video services are giving them. AOL music says it gets about 4 million viewers per week and versions of videos shown on Time Warner Cable's were watched about 8 million times monthly.

Source:
News.com

Permalink to this article

New music video download services (16 March 2005)

Universal Music Group launches download-only label (23 November 2004)

Universal licenses its music catalog to P2P start-up (16 November 2004)

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Discuss this article!
sly_61019 (AfterDawn Addict) 3 February 2005 22:10
greedy bastards! [ + quote]
runner121 (Inactive) 3 February 2005 23:12
Ultimatley what all of these large corporations want is to change the relationship between them and the "consumer".In achieving that we would PAY PER PLAY on everything.Thats everything--Maybe they would like us to pay for commercials too.So much as they would like to see this happen,Im afraid they just arent willing to accept defeat when they so obviously have lost.What they need to do now is SWALLOW thier dignity,and admit that P2P is the bigger giant and they are the ones who've been stepped on. [ + quote]
neewbie (Member) 3 February 2005 23:38
Thats just plain greedy [ + quote]
DaOsT (Senior Member) 4 February 2005 1:22
that is greedy cannot agree with you all more:) ::LivE ForeveR OR DiE TryiN!!::....::DonT FinD US WE WilL FinD YoU::.. ChecK OuT ThE PenguiN GamE AnD PosT YouR HighesT DistancE ON ThE ForuM http://www.gazholland.co.uk [ + quote]
SGSeries2 (Junior Member) 4 February 2005 7:56
I'm not exactly sure if this is very viable. I mean, music videos are sold now already in the form of dvd music video. I've never understood music video. Who on earth buys music videos. Live concerts, maybe. What makes you want to sit down and say, "Cool, I want to watch that again, and again, and again..." like a movie does to warrent its purpose. If that was what video was all about, who'd need a storyline? Why would you need all of those screenwriters for? All this for a bunch of short five-minute clips. Sure, Weird Al's got a knack for those kind of things, but that's about all there is to it. Sure, there's creativity, but they're still ads. Your bandwidth is what they buy, not the other way around. Why buy ads when they're used to buy you in the first place? If that were the case, there'd be PBS TV. That's it. [ + quote]
Jauzzi (Member) 4 February 2005 10:56
I agree with you all. Music videos are ads to get you to buy the record. Now they want to charge for their ads. Funny, ironic, and stupid. [ + quote]
scott2453 (Junior Member) 4 February 2005 12:51
greed greed greed i dont know what else to say about this [ + quote]
Ghostdog (Senior Member) 5 February 2005 0:36
So couldn�t an influencial party like MTV just say "Fuck that shit, we won�t show your videos on any of our channels". Surely UMG would then have to rethink their position. [ + quote]
P51ride (Newbie) 13 October 2007 22:25
I agree. Its just one more way for the record companies try to squeeze blood out of a rock. I hope that all of the music video channels tell the record companies to stick this idea up their six o clock. Total BOVINE SCAFFOLOGY. [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 23 November 2007 4:33