YouTube signs deal with MGM for movies
YouTube is doing everything it can to become the Web’s one-stop shop for video. They have always owned the short video market, but have lately been going after Hulu and other Web sites that offer longer video fare. First they announced the acquisition of television shows from CBS. Now the Google-owned YouTube has apparently signed a deal with MGM to offer full-length movies on the site.
YouTube is clearly after an even larger share of the video market, a marketplace in which they are already the leader. About ten days ago, the video giant signed a deal with CBS to show a wide range of that network’s television shows. There has been speculation for some time that they would be seeking film industry partners, allowing them to place feature films on their site.
The New York Times reports that Jordan Hoffner, the director of content partnerships for YouTube, said today, “We believe in comprehensiveness, and we want to have deals with everybody. We want to be able to give users the most content possible.” We can therefore be fairly sure that the CBS and MGM deals will not be the last. YouTube is obviously intent upon making deals for as much long content as possible.
The MGM deal includes only selected footage from the studio vaults. The initial offerings are said to include full-length features from many years ago, mainly actions films like The Magnificent Seven. Also included are clips from more recent movies like Legally Blonde, and complete older television shows such as American Gladiator.
These deals also begin to heal the wounds left by years of wrangling between YouTube and content owners over items uploaded by YouTube users, with YouTube saying they were not responsible for user uploads and the content owners asking that copyrighted material be removed. YouTube generally complied and the dance continued. Now, it seems that YouTube is trying to legalize its offerings.
As James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, said “YouTube is essentially saying to media companies, ‘We are sorry for our past copyright stance; we weren’t thinking big enough. Let’s see how we can make some money together.’“ With hundreds of million views on the line, there may be enough money to go around.
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