YouTube Telling Labels Not To Count On Big Checks
Just yesterday I wrote about Universal earning an estimated $100 million in 2008 from online music videos. The other major labels are getting big checks too with 80% of the money coming from YouTube.
Now comes word that YouTube is already in negotiations with the four major label groups and telling them not to count on those big checks for long. The new deals being offer by YouTube and parent Google, which take effect sometime next year, will not add nearly as much cash to label coffers.
Will the labels balk and not re-sign with YouTube? Don’t count on it. With the video site becoming a top choice for music discovery, the labels need YouTube more than YouTube needs them.
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Universal’s claim of receiving 100 million or even 80 million from YouTube is mathematically impossible. YouTube’s revenues top out at about 200 million. Unless Universal artists counted for half of YouTube’s traffic, that’s a lie.
Avril Lavigne’s manager tried to make the same ridiculous claims, but the math doesn’t lie: http://tinyurl.com/6s8mrf
Has anyone had anything substantive to say about how, or, if this magic money gets paid out to artist’s accounts, regardless if it’s Doug and Terry’s estimate or the real one?
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
Ryan – the money that Universal is collecting is not just a cut of YouTube’s revenue. That $100M also includes streaming fees YouTube has to pay for use of the underlying song copyright. It’s a hard cost YouTube has to pay whether or not it generates revenue for them. Remember Universal is not just a record company but also a massive publishing company.