14 DAY TRIAL // The new deal between Warner Music Group and YouTube rumored for the past days has been officially confirmed and the details seem to be spot on with everything predicted. Warner's entire catalogue will become available again on YouTube but the music label will also get its own highly customized pages for the artists. More importantly, Warner will sell all of the advertising for its content and YouTube will get a cut of the revenue. But, despite the new partnership, Vevo may not be completely out of the picture yet.
“We are happy to announce that Warner Music Group (WMG)'s artists are returning home to YouTube. Under this new, multi-year global agreement, you will be able to discover, watch and share Warner music on the site. The partnership covers the full Warner catalog and includes user-generated content containing WMG acts,” Chris Maxcy, director of YouTube Partner Development, wrote on the YouTube blog. “Warner will also be able to sell their own ad inventory and will use our Content ID technology to claim and monetize user-generated videos uploaded to YouTube by Warner Music fans. The partnership is based on a revenue share generated from the ads on the videos,” he added.
Warner removed its artists from YouTube last year when it failed to reach a new licensing agreement with the video site. The move was even criticized by some Warner artists and the general belief was that the music label had no real leverage against the giant video site. Still, WMG and Google made up and are now ready to give it another go. The details of the deal are the same ones speculated up till now and more specific terms weren't disclosed.
On the face of it the new deal is a blow to the upcoming music video site Vevo, a joint venture between Sony Music and Universal Music Group with the backend provided by YouTube. The site is scheduled to launch sometime this year and will feature only music videos from the labels' extensive catalogues. Warner hasn't expressed any interest so far and the deal could mean that it has chosen this other route. However, TechCrunch, citing sources close to the negotiations, reports that Warner is actually in talks with Vevo and could end up providing its videos to the new site as well.