Viacom triggers spat with own talent over YouTube
Don Day December 29th, 2007
Perez Hilton, the celeb-blogger has a show called What Perez Sez on Viacom-owned VH1. Why is that the lead line? Well, the (very) anti-YouTube conglomerate issued several DMCA takedown notices for three videos over the past year and half, according to TVWeek. After the third such notice, YouTube suspended Hilton’s account. Hilton had his lawyers contacted Viacom and asked them to resicnd the notices. Hilton says the company did that - and he had his account reinstated. But the blogger doesn’t like the way he was treated by YouTube, and has entertained a flurry of offers from video services.
For now, he’s going with Twistage - a private label video service that allows Hilton to keep the revenue generated by his videos. He says he only generated $5,000 on 25 million YouTube video views.
2 Comments Add your own
1. Jeremiah | December 29th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I’m currently under the impression YouTube charges the same amount for a banner impression irrespective of who’s video it accompanies. Under this model, there really can be no “stars” in YouTube’s universe, as highly sensational videos will attract eyes no matter who uploads them.
Back in 99-2000 (aka “The Precambrian” in ‘net years), MP3.com (then privately owned) put up a million dollars a month that it distributed to top traffic artists on the site. For a short time, there were several emerging artists who were making a living (read: mortgage and car payments) via their MP3.com revenue. This attracted not only a bazillion bands and artists (coincidentally, I was the 100,000th to join the site….),but the ire of the major media conglomerates.
Sooner or later, some company is going adopt the same model for video: serious, earning-a-living-from-this money will be ponied up in exchange for great content and promotion.
Kind of like….. it should be.
2. Anon | December 30th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Trust me I’m no fan of Perez Hilton (I think he’s trash) but this is a good move for him. How can YouTube expect people to put videos up on their site and only get 5k for 25 million hits? YouTube is going to have a lot of problems moving forward if they don’t change their model soon and update their video player.
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