Warner Music Group has now inked a deal to distribute music videos online through commercial means, alongside efforts from Time-Warner to limit the distribution of company products through distribution that violates copyrights.
This week, Warner Music Group forged a deal with Brightcove, an Internet TV group, to help commercially distribute Warner music videos online, as well as other music-related material. Working with Brightcove, the plan is currently to make music videos available through the Web sites of all the labels that are under the Warner umbrella, as well as various artists signed to these Warner labels. There are also plans to forge official deals through Brightcove to syndicate Warner Music videos on other sites as well. The content will also include live performance and behind-the-scenes footage of various Warner performers.
The plan is currently to make the Web videos available free supported by advertising, as well as some with pay-per-view models.
Time-Warner, the parent company. has already indicated plans to go after YouTube for distribution of videos that violate the company's copyright. Meanwhile, the WMG label has struck a deal with Google Video for distributing videos, with Google and Warner Music Group sharing in the profits, and Warner has signed a similar deal with YouTube. The various approaches are one strong indicator of the period of flux and change we are currently in.
Brightcove, which is based here in Cambridge, also provides a music video platform for Sony BMG called Music Box.
