YouTube
James McGrath
want to step up the searches & viewing since it seems
they may be "napstered" in the future.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Universal Music Group, the
world's biggest record company, is stepping up
pressure against popular online sites YouTube and
MySpace, accusing them of infringing the copyrights of
its artists' music videos.
Universal chief executive Doug Morris described video
site YouTube and News Corp.'s social networking site
MySpace as "copyright infringers" during a Merrill
Lynch investors' conference speech on Tuesday that was
closed to the press.
"The poster child for (user-generated media) sites are
MySpace and YouTube," said Morris, according to a
transcript obtained by Reuters. "We believe these new
businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of
millions of dollars."
He added, "How we deal with these companies will be
revealed shortly."
"His remarks strongly suggested the company was
planning to take legal action in the near-term to
either prevent the illegal use of their content on
these Web sites or to ensure the company is
compensated for the use of its content," Jessica Reif
Cohen, analyst at Merrill Lynch, wrote in a note on
Wednesday.
"This could be the first salvo from a content player
against business models based on user-generated
content, much of which relies on copyrighted
material."
Universal, owned by French media group Vivendi, has
been in negotiations with both YouTube and MySpace to
offer its artists' music legally for a fee.
A spokeswoman for YouTube, a two-year-old start-up
company that already boasts more than 100 million
viewings of short videos uploaded by users, said, "It
is our policy not to comment on our business
negotiations."
MySpace declined to comment.
The runaway success of the free-to-view online video
sites has raised the question of whether rights
holders such as record companies and movie companies
should be compensated, even if the clips are uploaded
by the users.
To date, YouTube has said it will take down any
copyrighted material illegally posted on the site once
it has been alerted by the rights holder.
In February, YouTube was ordered by lawyers for
General Electric Co.-owned television network NBC to
remove illegally posted clips of some of its
television shows, though in June the companies agreed
to feature some of NBC's shows legally on the site.
Last month, YouTube told Reuters that it is in
discussions with record companies to offer its users
the ability to watch virtually every music video ever
made, but had yet to settle on a business model to
allow viewers to see the videos for free.
YouTube also announced later that month it would be
testing a new advertising model with Warner Music
Group featuring celebrity hotel heiress Paris Hilton.
Record companies are keen to avoid repeating the
mistake they believe they made when Viacom Inc.'s MTV
was set up 25 years ago -- allowing their artists'
music to be aired for free.
Morris in his remarks to investors on Tuesday said MTV
"built a multibillion-dollar company on our (music)
... for virtually nothing. We learned a hard lesson."
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Forcella, Domenic , Public Safety
My computer does not really act good with the site, so I really haven't seen what is available.
Of course not that I think the big buck people will help anyone but themselves.
the rich get richer
Dom