14 DAY TRIAL // If you want a clear example of just how convoluted the entire music industry is right now, it doesn't get any better than the latest video from the band-turned-Internet sensation OK Go which YouTube helped make famous. They've got a new album coming out and naturally they want to promote it with a new video as well. This is where it gets tricky, the band's label EMI has the video up on YouTube, sans-embeds, but the band has also put it up on Vimeo so that anyone can use it on their blogs. It gets better, separately EMI is also suing Vimeo, for copyright infringement what else, for supposedly encouraging its users to submit 'lib dub' videos.
The band has now come forward with an open letter explaining why the embeds are disabled on YouTube and why they've decided to put the video on Vimeo and MySpace as well. It makes for a very interesting reading as it paints a very accurate picture of the music industry's state from an inside position.
On the issue of the disabled embeds, the band says it is very upset about this, but that it has no leverage in the matter and it's the decision of the music label. They explain the reason behinds this, no surprise to anyone following online video, sites like YouTube make money from the ads they serve next to the videos. While ads inside the videos are starting to show up, for the most part, embedded videos mean zero direct revenue for the site and, by extension, for the labels licensing the content. You could argue that embedded videos bring more people to the original site, resulting in more ad views, but this is another matter.
OK Go says it understands the label's position but, at the same time, it cares about its fans more, which is why they've made their video available on other video sites which do allow embeds, among them Vimeo. And the reason why Vimeo got the most attention is because EMI is involved in a legal dispute with the site, so it can't be too thrilled about one of their videos being hosted on the site uploaded by the very ones who made it. It's certainly not the last time we'll hear of this type of situations and, by the looks of things, it may be a few years until the music industry finally adapts to the online environment leaving behind the old ways and discovers new means of making money from music, without actually selling it.