Warner’s move that they made with YouTube is the best deal the music business has made all year. This will go down as one of the first steps in an innovative direction that the industry has made. The most interesting thing to come of this is YouTube’s royalty tracking system. How does it work and does it work well? All of this cool stuff going on and what is the biggest record label doing with YouTube?…suing them!
I read a lot of Bob’s posts but this one stood out to me. I was just having a conversation with someone about this same exact subject the other night. At the root of the this issue, of making available copyrighted material on streaming sites such as YouTube and MySpace, is how to monetize it. It is really very simple. When in doubt learn from your piers in the same market. What is the simplest way to make money on the web? Advertising. Wrap up the content in pre or post roll ads. This will accomplish two vital things. One being that the majors will start seeing some income from all their material they have available and two, it will at the very least be a step forward instead a lateral step or no step at all. The music industry in particular, hasn’t made big steps in experimenting with monetization schemes. These are times of trial and error. But they don’t have to be that risky if you look around and learn from other’s mistakes. Fred has a good post on his ideas for monetizing YouTube. YouTube will look at Google for inspiration on how to make money. Other industries should do the same. The music business needs to pay very close attention to what services like YouTube and MySpace are doing because these services are the future of their content distribution. There is no question that this is how content will be served up in the coming years. All of these issues make me want to form a consulting team that would walk with music labels and other content owners as they navigate how to make money in an “everything is available all the time” world because its not going to come from the inside. I should do that.
There has been a lot of talkaboutLisaNova…sure you’ve seen her around.
This is the state of things now. Its possible to have your material see and heard by everyone…everyone knows this. …although Mark thinks its boring.
I can’t help but think what it would have been like if these tools were available when Speilberg was making his war movies as a kid in his backyard.
What would that have been like? Were the internet availble then would it have made Speilberg, or someone that good, into something that he isn’t today?
Doubt it.
Even though there is the potential with the internet to break down walls of distribution and access, people still have to make the right decisions. The internet doesn’t help you make the right decisions.
When I say “right decisions” I’m talking about the question that Lisa must be asking of herself “now I have 75,000 views of my movie, now what do I do?” The best answer is to probably just keep on making the best content in the same manner. But the goal is to move forward and become a bit more than someone who posts funny movies on YouTube right!?
Here is the problem: How do you grow and continue to reach more and more people with progressively better quality content but do all of that without the help of old media concepts.
Brains always trumps technology.
I have yet to see a super star come from the likes of YouTube, MySpace etc. It’s possible and its going to happen. BUT, you gotta be smart, you gotta know how to do it, you gotta have a plan, you gotta know what you’re trying to do, you gotta know how to envision the end result, you gotta keep it goin’.
What would that have been like? Were the internet availble then would it have made Speilberg, or someone that good, into something that he isn’t today?
