According to Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube “On whether we will pay users for the content they upload, the truth is that we will move in that direction.” This statement can be heard in a video that appears to have been recorded during the World Economic Forum held in Davos (Switzerland).
No details have been provided on the amount that users can get or the bases on which the content will be paid.
According to their statements, YouTube seeks to create a large enough community before beginning to pay its users for content. “We don’t want to create a system that is motivated by financial reward. When you start paying people money from day one, what you get is that the people you have attracted switch to the next highest paying provider.”
The system could work in a similar way to what happens in the world of music, where the profits are shared with the record company that owns the rights to the music.
YouTube has indicated that it is developing a sound fingerprint technology that would identify the sounds used in the videos displayed on the website and that would allow record companies to claim the corresponding benefits for their use.
Once the technology is up and running, record labels will be able to profit from the videos that people create on their travels, for example. “With our platform, they have the market opportunity to generate profit for these types of materials […] It means opening a new market that did not exist until now. “
Hurley does not describe how the creator of the video can earn money from such a video, although it would potentially be the record companies who could share their profits with such video creators.
YouTube announced last year, a day before it was acquired by Googole, that it was working on a system with several record companies and that it could allow users to license content from record companies for use in their videos. The record company and YouTube also reached an agreement by which they would share the income corresponding to the music and videos shown on YouTube.
YouTube has had problems with other content owners who are not very happy with being compensated for their copyrighted materials that are being shown on YouTube. Last week YouTube received a subpoena from Fox television to remove the videos corresponding to the company’s television programs and that were being shown on YouTube.
