News: Lyor Cohen Explains YouTube Dispute, Encourages People To "Experiment"
Tuesday, Jan 20, 2009 6:10AM
Warner Music Group Chairman Lyor Cohen recently addressed the label's decision to withdrawal their artists' videos from YouTube.
Cohen justifed the decision as a means of growth for the label.
"At the beginning we believed wholeheartedly that we needed to be the enabler. We believe that there's not going to be one magic solution to this but it's important to encourage people to experiment. So we went and started being very easy to license with. [But] we just haven't received enough compensation. They haven't figured out how to monetize it well enough to make our share significant enough." (Billboard)
WMG removed their videos from YouTube last month.
Unable to reach new licensing terms, the Warner Music Group has demanded that thousands of its videos be removed from YouTube, which is owned by Google. Warner Music's videos, the source of a billion views on YouTube, gradually began disappearing from the site on Saturday, although many remained online Sunday evening. (New York Times)
The company was originally one of the first to strike a deal with YouTube in 2006.
Warner Music Group signed a landmark deal that gives the video-sharing site the right -- in return for a revenue cute -- to distribute WMG music videos and other material. Whenever someone uploads to YouTube a video that contains a WMG song, new software on YouTube recognizes it. Warner then accepts or denies that video, and if the video is shown the two companies split the revenue from ads shown alongside. (Reel Pop)
Comments
You may now sign-in to comment using your current Facebook, Word Press, Blogger, Type Pad or AIM accounts. You may also comment without signing in. If you have any problems please let us know.
UPDATE: We are aware that Firefox users may be experiencing issues with commenting. We expect to have this fixed shortly.