Tuesday, September 19, 2006

YouTube goes commercial

As reported yesterday, YouTube just signed a deal to distribute videos from Warner Music Group. Seems like the first step for commercial media distribution - and the only way to prevent entertainment companies to close YouTube in order to circumvent illegal media sharing such as with Napster. Does this mean that other entertainment companies will follow, turning the platform into an alternative to other entertainment platforms (without user-generated content)? Does this mean a step backward from the Web 2.0 ideas of collaborative content and media sharing? How will users react to this? How will YouTube's business model evolve? I suspect there will be a basic YouTube service (similar to the platform as it is now) complemented by a premium service which allows the download of copyrighted material for a monthly fee.

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