According to Reuters, Warner Music Group has ordered YouTube to pull down all music videos by its artists, which could affect hundreds of thousands of videos. The reason? Money (what else could it be?). Apparently Warner aren’t exactly impressed by the paltry return they’re getting from the video site, a site they believe they helped build when they agreed to share their music video content before Google dropped billions of dollars buying them out.
It doesn’t look like any Warner videos have been pulled down yet, so maybe there’s still hope for the arrangement. But you have to wonder why Warner would expect a massive return from YouTube videos anyway… Is there a single person who pays attention to ads around a YouTube music video? I’d have thought it would be better to look at it as a way of growing your band’s exposure, rather than a revenue raiser. But of course, I’m just a cynical tech blogger, not a representative from a music label, so I’ll just sit back and watch as many Muse and RHCP clips on YouTube today as I can in case tomorrow sees them all disappear…
[Reuters]