How I'd monetize at least part of YouTube, if I were still at the Goog

create. and. consume.

September 23, 2009

How I'd monetize at least part of YouTube, if I were still at the Goog

Sell. CDs. From. Indie. And. Commercial. Artists.

Sell. DVDs. Next to. Movie Trailers.

Take a small percentage of the sales revenue. There's got to be a huge population of people who watch movie trailers, music videos, covers of popular songs, and original work by indie artists trying to get exposure. Relatively, the sample players on Amazon and Barnes and Noble suck so bad. This is the perfect way to test drive media before buying - if Google just brought it all onto one platform and standardized the checkout/distribution process.... just think. Omg. They'd be even richer than they already are.

I guess they already sell mp3s, but I think it's about getting all these people who make new music and don't have a good way to distribute it, make it buyable.

Just random brainstorming on a Wednesday evening.

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Comments (5)

Sep 23, 2009

Sachin Agarwal said...

I believe that if youtube tried to sell music or DVDs alongside videos or clips that they don't have the license to distribute, they would no longer qualify for DMCA safe harbor provisions.

I haven't really been keeping up on the youtube licensing battles, who is being sued or what is being licensed... But I don't believe Youtube licenses most (if any) of the music or clips that play on the site. In fact, i'm sure they don't because I still see videos being removed.

So the only way youtube is able to have those videos on the site legally is by being a DMCA safe harbor. To qualify for DMCA safe harbor, one of the requirements is:

"Finally, the service provider must not have knowledge that the material or activity is infringing or of the fact that the infringing material exists on its network."

By putting ads or selling media next to these videos, Youtube admits that it does know what content is on the site.

Sep 23, 2009

Patrick Au-Yeung said...

Sachin, how does it work for Posterous then? When i upload music files it's totally downloadable. Do you, or will you, at some point have to browse your network and see if any user uploaded content is infringing copyrighted material?

Sep 23, 2009

Patrick Au-Yeung said...

...and delete them accordingly? (finishing my above sentence)

Sep 23, 2009

Sachin Agarwal said...

Patrick, we are a DMCA safe harbor. Per our terms of service, it is the responsibility of each of our users to only post content that they have the right to distribute.

If someone reports to us (via a DMCA takedown notice) that their content is being distributed on our site without their permission, we will remove it immediately.

So we have no responsibility to browse our own network or police anything

Sep 26, 2009