James Delahunty
3 Feb 2005 20:44
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