YouTube is already encoding a batch of videos from Warner, in preparation to relaunch them on YouTube. Warner’s music could also end up on Vevo, the YouTube-supported video service Universal Music Group and Sony Music plan to launch by the end of the year. For now, this deal only puts Warner’s videos back on YouTube, according to a source close to the situation, who also confirmed ongoing negotiations between Vevo and Warner.
Warner had been losing fans and views by keeping its music off of YouTube — something it said it had to do in response to YouTube’s slim payouts. Under terms of the “just-signed” deal, Warner will be responsible for selling advertising against its own videos, so it will decide how much to charge for ads and find ad buyers on its own, rather than settling for whatever Google decides on. In order to attract premium advertisers, Warner plans to create a separate channel within YouTube consisting only of “premium” content.
Warner’s return to YouTube will come as a big relief to artists such as Neil Young, who had complained about Warner silencing his videos. The reason for the label’s change of heart — in addition to its bet that it can make more from ads than YouTube paid out before — has to do with a shift in thinking about audio on the web. Music services that rely on video, such as YouTube, enable advertisers to display video ads in ways that don’t apply when a user is listening to the same music on an audio-only platform. (The music-streaming service Pandora recently launched a small video section, most likely for the same reason.)
For music fans, this represents a clear victory, in that we can once again watch and listen to Warner artist’s music on YouTube, for free, and apparently at a high quality to boot. However, it’s not yet clear whether we will also be able to embed Warner’s videos elsewhere on the internet as part of the deal. Warner might prefer to keep the videos in its channel, to increase their allure to advertisers by controlling what appears around the videos.
Even if the playcounts start right where they left off, as Warner’s videos reappear on the site, nothing will make up for Warner’s nine-month YouTube time-out. Still, it’s good to see that the label’s relationship with YouTube — once a major example of the failure of ad-supported, on-demand music — has been repaired, so videos by Warner’s artists are on their way to returning to the site.
http://www.wired.com
