The BBC says that YouTube, a prolific video sharing site that Google snatched up for $1.65 billion last November, plans to share its revenue with users who upload popular content.
Bloggers every where breathed a collective sigh of relief and in a rare moment, seemed to agree on one thing: it's about time.
"Dissent would have grown louder from YouTube's user base had the site continued to make exponential ad gains through leeching off its all-important content providers...," Robert Andrews at Blogging4business.info, said.
According to Jeff Jarvis at the BuzzMachine, YouTube thought that offering big bucks up front would have attracted the wrong crowd at the community-driven site. The company "wanted to build a community of people who wanted to be there to be there and who would not just leave to the next best offer," Jarvis wrote.
Will Video for Food's editor/writer predicted YouTube's revenue sharing move a while back, saying it was a logical next step. He also had some theories on the reasons for the decision. "Chad Hurley, YouTube cofounder, had too much wine at the economic summit and decided to show he has a heart. Forgot to tell Google." On a bit of a more serious side, he wrote that "It's the right thing to do. Current contributors are attracting eyeballs and creating advertising revenue."
According to the BBC, the revenue-sharing model will probably include some pre-roll advertisements shown before each video on the site, something other video sharing sites are already doing.
Still, some bloggers saw trouble just behind all the dollar signs.
The site could be susceptible to a problem well known to anyone with an e-mail account, says the author of Reality Weird: spam. "While it sounds good, it also opens the door to the would be spammer. As with other revenue sharing type programs, marketers and publishers both seem to find creative ways to exploit the system."
Gilbert Hammer, at IPTV Evangelist (a technology blog) wrote that "of course, unless you have created a Mentos ad or similar fare serious content creators are going to be hard pressed to generate sustained revenue from my perspective." In his view, more and more posts at more frequent rates will equal higher payouts, but he says the highest quality comes from those who take their time to craft a unique product.
While users will only get paid for revenue generated from content that they own the copyright to, at least one blogger saw a slippery slope there, questioning what will happen to money already paid if a copy right violation isn't spotted immediately.
The company says it works hard to take down material that infringes someone else's copyright, it also indicates that it does so only when notified of a potential violation. In other words, it doesn't police the site (though the company says it's working on better technology that'll make spotting violators easier).
That could translate to a crop of possible lawsuits with easy-to-figure price tags attached by copyright holders who want their share of the revenue paid out by YouTube.
The BBC reported that YouTube's revenue-sharing program will role out in small doses over the next several months. As to whether it will create a host of YouTube tycoons or just a lot of problems, in the words of the IPTV Evangelist, "time will tell."
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Justin McLachlan, News Correspondent
Justin's column, The Otherside, published once a week to Gather Essentials: News breaks original stories the mainstream media hasn't found yet and looks at the stories being talked about by real people like you.
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