YouTube plans music video archive supported by ads

Video-sharing website YouTube is in talks with major record companies including EMI and Warner Music about hosting old and current music videos for its users to view for free.

The discussions are believed to centre on the nature of the business model and how it will balance free viewing with ad revenue and revenue for the labels and their artists.

YouTube's ambition is to have "every music video ever created" up on the site, according to its co-founder Steve Chen.

He said: "Right now we're trying to very quickly determine how and what the model is to distribute this content and we're very aggressive in assisting the labels in trying to get the content onto YouTube."

YouTube plans to allow its community of users to add videos to their own profiles and write reviews about them, believing this will differentiate its site from Apple's iTunes store and Yahoo! and AOL's music features.

More at: Brand Republic

Links: youtube emi warner music video itunes free