Warner, YouTube in music-sharing deal
Warner Music Group Corp. will be the first record company to let users of YouTube Inc.'s website download and manipulate copyrighted music and videos in exchange for a portion of advertising revenue.
Users of YouTube's video-sharing site will be able to take and post songs from New York-based Warner's catalog , the companies said yesterday.
``We're giving a framework for any kid in the world to try to make the best Green Day video with one of their songs," Alex Zubillaga, executive vice president of digital strategy and business development for Warner, said in an interview. The rock band Green Day records under a Warner label.
The agreement comes at a time when the recording industry has stepped up pressure on YouTube and other sites, claiming they infringe on copyrights of music and videos. Court decisions have put most peer-to-peer content-sharing networks out of business. Some music companies are forging agreements with website operators to build revenue and fight digital piracy.
Not all recording companies appear ready to make deals with closely held YouTube.
Last week Doug Morris, the chairman of Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, implied that some action may be taken against infringers. He told investors at a Merrill Lynch conference that companies like YouTube and News Corp.'s MySpace are ``copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars."
Warner, the world's fourth-largest record company, also said yesterday that it agreed to offer its music to another file- sharing service, Qtrax, following a similar agreement between Qtrax and EMI Group in June .
