Video for Santogold’s “L.E.S. Artistes”
Archive for July, 2008
via TechCrunch: Veoh is now displaying ads using a behavioral targeting algorithm based on its related-video recommendation engine. This is already being done with traditional banner content on other sites but is new for video portals. Right now it still only tracks user interaction on its own site, but as the article points out, ad relevance could be increased through data sharing partnerships (if the privacy details can be worked out).
-Nick
I wrote earlier this week about EMI’s legal attack on Hi5, and the advertising value its subsidiary Virgin Records got from the Daft Hands meme (which was exactly the kind of material EMI objected to Hi5 serving).
I’ve been listening to the new album from mashup artist Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis) a lot over the past couple of days and it brings up some issues in the same vein.
2006’s “Night Ripper” (torrent | complete list of samples) launched him into Pitchfork shininess, and the critical acclaim is well deserved. To give you an idea, here’s “Hold Up”, in which the samples range from Ludacris and 50 Cent to Weezer and the Pixies (NSFW):
“…online video is expected to be one of the fastest-growing emerging mediums in 2009, with a growth rate of 45% and spending of $800 million.
“It is the one medium that advertisers are most comfortable with,” [Magna's] Brian Wieser said. “The assets that are required can be the same as those with TV, and there has been an increase in supply of inventory of A-grade content.”
So ended a rather gloomy article from AdAge entitled “Coen Revises ‘08 Forecast Down in Face of Grim Economy”.
Last week EMI filed a lawsuit against the social network hi5 for allowing its users to upload videos with unlicensed music on their audio tracks. EMI alleges that hi5
“allowed infringement to go unchecked, content to profit handsomely from advertisements that appear side-by-side with infringing content, and from the draw created by their dissemination of [EMI's] copyrighted works.” (from the lawsuit)
OK. It’s understandable that EMI wants some control over how its content is used, who profits from it, and how much they pay for the right to do so. But this music-industry-has-hopelessly-oldschool-economic-model thing is becoming a tiresome truism. EMI is not going to be able to make money from teenagers using EMI songs in their homemade videos. EMI wishes it could. But that doesn’t mean the solution to the situation is to try to stop teenagers from using EMI songs in their homemade videos.