YouTube Partners with MGM to Show Full-Length Video
YouTube and MGM announced an agreement that will enable YouTube to show selected MGM television shows and films. The partnership will be kicked off with full-length episodes of “American Gladiators,” full-length films like “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven,” and clips from “Legally Blonde.” Ads will run alongside the video, but the video itself will be free to watch.
The deal represents an interesting shift in the dynamic between content producers and YouTube, as the two camps have been at odds with each other over copyright issues since YouTube’s debut in 2005. YouTube allows users to upload video clips without strict controls governing copyright ownership, angering many content producers, who claim this sort of arrangement has cost them dollars over the years.
Though the internet has long been a Wild West atmosphere with little regard to content ownership—at least as far as compensation is concerned—prominent video sharing sites are now trying to make good with Hollywood. Witness the success of Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and Fox, where users can see full-length episodes and clips of NBC- and Fox-produced content. After being acquired by Google in 2006, YouTube is now trying to catch up, inking deals with not only MGM, but Lionsgate and CBS as well.
To mollify disgruntled content producers, YouTube recently developed a system called VideoID, which allows content producers to spot unauthorized clips on the YouTube site. When unauthorized content is found, content producers can choose to remove the clips or keep them live and advertise on them.
As quoted in the New York Times, Forrester Research analyst James L. McQuivey feels the new system is basically an apology from YouTube to the content producer community. “YouTube is essentially saying to media companies ‘we are sorry for our past copyright stance; we weren’t thinking big enough. Let’s see how we can make some money together.’”
By Robert Pothier