Music Business Journal: Back to VEVO
Video is the fastest growing segment on the internet and a quick glance at the top-ranked videos on YouTube will reveal music videos occupying almost all of the top slots. Lady Gaga, for example, recently reached 1 billion views. But does YouTube track and monetize Lady Gaga? Not really, for it is mired in a copyright conundrum over its content. The answer is that VEVO.com does. And, following a recent agreement, Google, which owns YouTube, is now moving all full-length professional music videos to the VEVO website.
VEVO's Beginnings
VEVO.com was created by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and the Abu-Dhabi Media Company. It was meant to satisfy the demand for access to music video programming of popular artists. It features the most extensive catalog of high quality music video on the web. It is available thanks to exclusive distribution and advertising deals with the Orchard and many other independents, as well as all the major labels except Warner. The service uses YouTube's technology and is available through VEVO.com, the VEVO-branded embedded player, and VEVO on YouTube. Official high quality music videos appear on YouTube through a customized VEVO channel. Any other music videos on YouTube—streaming outside the VEVO channel—are likely unofficial violations of copyright law and subject to immediate removal. About four-fifths of VEVO's business comes from a syndication deal with YouTube, which is the largest video website in the world....