VEVO Has Paid Musicians $200 Million Since 2009

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Vevo

Music video management firm VEVO has paid more than $200 million to its artists since launching in 2009. The music service is responsible for managing the music videos and performances for thousands of artists around the world.

VEVO CEO Rio Caraeff spoke at the Business Insider Ignition Conference in New York City on Tuesday where he announced the company’s massive artist payments.

VEVO has streamed billions of video views thanks to artists that include Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and many others.

The music service earns money through pre-roll ads that stream once for every six to seven minutes of video watched per user.  [Read more…]

YouTube Records Broken As Felix Baumgartner Breaks Skydiving Record

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Felix SkydiveFelix Baumgartner’s supersonic freefall was not only a record breaking skydive attempt that broke the speed of sound with the human body, it was also a record breaking YouTube sensation.

Broadcast live on YouTube the social video sharing website revealed that the jump is now the “live stream with the most concurrent views ever on YouTube.”

At the time of the jump 8 million concurrent live streams were broadcasting at one time. Those concurrent views were broadcast over the Red Bull YouTube channel.

At one point it was Baumgartner who held the record with 7 million concurrent views, but his Sunday attempt just sent that number shooting higher. [Read more…]

YouTube Asking Customers To “Blow Whistle” When Publishers Fail To Show Closed Captions

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YouTube Law submission form
All television stations under an FCC mandated released this Summer but provide their TV content with closed captioning enabled. Now with the law in effect YouTube is going after its publishers to do the same. To reach its goal YouTube is asking for “whistleblowers” to report content they believe should feature closed captions.
The videos that should include closed caption can be reported via a special web form. The form is forwarded to the content provider which in turn must answer the complaint. Once an answer is given YouTube forwards the content providers response back to the user.

Abusing the form comes with the following warning:

“Abuse of this webform may result in termination of your YouTube account.” [Read more…]

YouTube ‘Appeals’ Allow Users To Fight Copyright Notices

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YouTube Copyright AppealsHave you ever had content removed from YouTube because a content creator claimed you stole their footage, music, etc? In some cases that content was rightfully obtained and now YouTube is giving video uploading members the chance to fight those take down notices with a new appeals process.

The new “Appeal” section allows users to claim they have right to use the data. If a content owner still believes that user is in violation they much file a DMCA takedown notice.

In the past a dispute removed a video and the user was just plain out of luck.

The appeal means the content holder will take the user to “court” and if the uploading party is still found to be in violation of copyright they will receive one “strike” against them. Three strikes and the user is kicked off YouTube permanently.  [Read more…]

YouTube Increasing Mobile Ads, Will Allow Users To Skip Them On Request

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YouTube Mobile Ads

YouTube on Wednesday announced that Trueview in-stream video ads will begin to roll-out on mobile devices.

In a post on the  Google Mobile Ads Blog group product manager Phil Farhi wrote:

“We’ve rolled out a number of specific mobile ad formats on YouTube over the past year, making it easier for advertisers to reach people with great ads and content creators to monetize mobile views.  Now we’re extending this further by launchingTrueView in-stream video ads on mobile devices.”

The TrueView ads are the same ones that feature the “skip” button on YouTube videos. After a few seconds of viewing users simply click the “skip” button to move on to their desired video.

For advertisers the move is good news since they only pay for ads that are viewed in their entirety, while even a short acknowledgement could still help their branding efforts. According to Ad Age, “YouTube says that 65% of pre-roll ads on YouTube now allow viewers to skip them.”  [Read more…]

YouTube Now Streaming 4 Billion Hours Per Month

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YouTube Streaming NumbersYouTube continues to grow by leaps and bounds and this month the video streaming network reported 4 billion hours of watch video, a new record just two months after the site celebrated its 7th birthday.

4 billion hours is the equivalent of 456,000 years worth of video viewing in a single one month time period.

Two months ago YouTube executives revealed 3 billion hours of monthly viewing, an increase of 1 billion hours in under 60 days.

YouTube exec Robery Kyncl revealed the new streaming record while speaking on Thursday at the company’s new professional content channels initiative.

Here are some additional stats which may surprise YouTube users: [Read more…]

YouTube As Cash Cow: Charlie Bit My Finger Family Has Earned $500,000 [Video]

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Charlie Bit My FingerIn 2007 father Howard Davies-Carr put up a YouTube video titled “Charlie Bit My Finger” which as the name suggests featured a baby boy named Charlie who bit his brothers finger.

Since going viral just over 4 years ago the video has been viewed 436 million times, earning the family heaps of money under Google’s revenue sharing program.

According to Mr. Davies-Carr he almost removed the video at one boy but then realized:

“At first I thought, well, this is a bit strange, maybe I should take it down.  And then I realized that, well, if I take it down then what would happen is that everybody that’s already created parodies or taken a copy of it and put it on their own website will just keep those running.”

The family started receiving revenue after the video reached 50 million views and when added in with TV spots the family soon found itself half a million dollars richer with more money coming in as people continue to revisit an internet favorite clip.  [Read more…]

YouTube Channels Can Now Be Created Through Your Google+ Account

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Google PlusIf like millions of Google account holders you have chosen to use your same account for YouTube and Google+ the company has rolled out a new feature that allows you to create new YouTube channels directly from your Google+ account.

On Youtube’s blog Product manager Trevor O’Brien reveals:

You can now use your Google+ profile name and photo on a new YouTube channel, giving you one consistent identity across platforms when uploading videos, sharing, commenting and other public activities.”

The process is very simply to implement, basically you choose to create a new YouTube channel from inside your Google+ account and you will see the following options: [Read more…]

YouTube Now Streaming 4 Billion Videos Per Day

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YouTubeOver the last eight months video views on popular video streaming website YouTube have jumped 25% to 4 billion online videos each day.

Video views continue to increase particularly in the smartphone and Smart TV market where users are able to download YouTube videos faster and with better display quality.

YouTube has also revealed that uploads to the service have greatly increased from 48 hours each minute in May to 60 hours each minute at the current time.

While YouTube users are watching more videos through the service YouTube users only spend 15 minutes each day watching videos on the site while American TV watchers consume four to five hours watching TV every day on average. It’s that low level of engagement that has led investors to question YouTube’s earnings capabilities.  [Read more…]

SOPA Clearly Isn’t the Answer to Online Piracy

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I honestly don’t fully know the best way to combat online piracy; but I do know that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) isn’t it. The bill would create a plethora of problems if it were passed. Let’s be real here, copyright infringement and piracy are real problems that need real solutions, but when you spot a weed growing in your front yard, do you dig up the entire lawn to get rid of it? No, you pull that weed, and ONLY that weed, out of the ground and you do your best to monitor the lawn for any future weeds.

User-Generated Content Sites and SOPA

Censored by SOPA

One of the complaints that you’ll consistently hear about the SOPA bill is that it is way too generalized and all-encompassing. For instance, under SOPA, a site will be considered dedicated to the theft of U.S. intellectual property if it is “primarily designed or operated for the purpose of offering services in a manner that enables or facilitates copyright infringement”. Well, take YouTube for example; the online video site serves an average of 100 million videos every single day. The majority of it is uploaded by users, who can remain anonymous with minimal effort if they so choose. Under SOPA, YouTube can be considered a site that is primarily designed in a way that enables copyright infringement because of those reasons. Totally nuts. Blog owners might find themselves harboring illegal content through RSS, and pay the price for it; who knows anymore? [Read more…]