YouTube Reaches Deals for Music Video, Sports Content

YouTube announced deals that will provide its users with more legitimate music video and professional basketball content.

YouTube Inc. furthered its attempts to offer legitimate footage on its video-sharing Web site this week by announcing deals that will provide users with music video and professional basketball content.

On Tuesday YouTube and Wind-up Records, a division of Wind-up Entertainment Inc., said that a majority of its music videos will be shown on the site. The arrangement also allows for the use of certain preselected music tracks in user-created videos. Artists signed to the label include Evanescence and Scott Stapp, who was the lead singer of the band Creed.

As with its other media partners, a revenue-sharing model will give both companies money from the advertising sold on the pages that display Wind-up's content.

This follows Monday's announcement that the National Basketball Association has teamed with YouTube to create an "NBA Channel" on the site. As of Monday, users can view league-approved NBA content on the channel. The material will come from NBA.com's own video selections and will include certain selected plays and behind-the-scenes footage. While users will still be allowed to upload NBA material to the site, the arrangement allows the league to call for the removal of some material.

In the spirit of the user-generated content movement that is part of "Web 2.0," users can also submit videos of their basketball skills. Site visitors will judge the videos and the winners will be compiled and shown in a weekly highlight video.

The profit-sharing arrangement also extends to this deal, according to the NBA.

The moves are part of a larger effort YouTube has made to resolve intellectual-property disputes over copyright material users upload to the site. Copyright holders have demanded that YouTube remove the material while in other situations the video's owners and YouTube have reached agreements that allow content to remain on the site.

YouTube, founded in 2005, began experiencing fall out from hosting copyright video around the time Google Inc. announced it was purchasing the site for US$1.65 billion in October 2006.

Earlier this month YouTube complied with a request from Viacom International Inc. to remove over 100,000 of its clips, including content from MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures.

In January YouTube deleted clips from News Corp.'s Fox television division after the media company subpoenaed the site and asked for the content's removal in addition to information on who posted the material. This came after a bout with a group of Japanese copyright holders in October that resulted in the removal of approximately 30,000 clips.

YouTube holds content deals with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, CBS Corp., Warner Music Group Corp., NBC and the National Hockey League.

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