Frozen Frame

What Warner Music Group and You Tube’s messy breakup means for the future of online video

Last Christmas EvE, singer amanda Palmer posted a message on her blog: “if you hadn’t noticed, all of the Dresden Dolls and amanda Palmer official videos have been taken off Youtube. i loved my videos. Now they are gone.…Did i mention that being on a major label is starting to seem like…not such a grand idea?”

Palmer, who records for roadrunner records, is one of hundreds of Warner music Group artists—including madonna, Green Day, and the White stripes—whose music videos are no longer available on Youtube. the reason? money. Youtube’s licensing agreement with WmG expired in mid-2008, and after Warner pushed for a bigger slice of the site’s ad-revenue pie, Youtube said no thanks. the disruption incensed Youtube’s users and laid bare the record industry’s frustrated struggle to turn massive exposure into tangible profits.

Like many artists, Palmer says Youtube has been instrumental in shaping her career. “i’d post unreleased solo songs and think nothing of it,” she says, months after her blog rant. “But then i’d play those songs live and see hundreds of people singing along. You can’t argue with that.” australian singer sia also says she relies on the site for fail-safe exposure. “Lord knows, without Perez hilton and Kanye West linking my videos from their blogs, i would have sold a fuckload less albums,” says the hear music artist. One-woman band theresa andersson went from fledgling upstart to Conan O’Brien musical guest after Youtube featured her homemade performance clip for “Na Na Na” on its home page. “Whether it’s Beyoncé or me, we find our audience on Youtube,” andersson says.

Warner’s decision doesn’t just affect signed musicians: millions of people who have posted amateur videos featuring songs by WmG artists like Gnarls Bark-

ley and r.E.m. had their work deleted, as well. heated protest videos appeared, including one by rob ruben (a.k.a. tyger WDr), in which he animatedly explains the situation and advocates fighting back by inundating both companies with faxes. “internet users don’t see borders,” ruben says. “We tend to look at everything as ‘it’s out there; we can use it.’ ” While he understands the underlying licensing issues, he’s also aware that Youtube is making money from the ads that appear alongside his and others’ homemade videos.

money that Warner, apparently, wasn’t seeing enough of. in December, The New York Times reported that less than 1 percent of the label’s $639 million in digital revenue in 2008 came from Youtube—despite the estimated one billion views their artists’ videos had amassed. Warner was the first major label to ink a deal with Youtube, in september 2006, barely a month before Google bought the site for $1.65 billion. Universal and sony BmG announced deals at the beginning of October—when rumors of the acquisition were stirring—and likely made more lucrative arrangements as a result. in fact, in December, Universal executive rio Caraeff told tech website CNEt that Universal was bringing in “tens of millions of dollars” from Youtube. and sources at Youtube confirmed that sony BmG recently renewed its partnership, negotiating a new multiyear deal.

While no other label has followed Warner’s lead, the question remains whether sites like Youtube can sustain their breadth of content without further public confrontations with financially frustrated copyright holders. theresa andersson, for one, hopes it can. “i understand that a label that spends a lot of money would need to see some come back,” she says, “but that’s the old way of doing things.” ABIGAIL EVERDELL

Drive-Buys
Suge Knight’s rap sheet may be rife
with venomous business deals, but the
cofounder of Death Row Records was
once hip-hop’s supreme mogul. Mired
in debt, the label—former home to
Dre, Snoop, and Tupac—was whittled
down in January from empire to
public garage sale by order of federal
bankruptcy court. We tracked the
remnants as fans toted them from a
Fullerton, California warehouse.

Electric chair from Knight’s office,

which appears in Death Row’s logo and numerous videos

ITEM:

WINNING BID:

$2,500

Dale Fletcher, CEO of skatewear line Hostility

WHERE IT’S GOING:
“In a nice vault that
even a bomb couldn’t blow up.”
EBAY PO TEN TIAL:

HIGH BIDDER:

A $20K asking price

online fell flat, but a contract for resale—
from the guy who pawned Britney
Spears’ locks—is locked, loaded, not quite
ready to fax.

ITEM:

Life-size portrait of Tupac by the artist behind Snoop’s Tha Doggfather album cover, Ronald “Riskie” Brent

WINNING BID:

$150

HIGH BIDDER:

Web entrepreneur Mark Ress, whose sons said, “That’d be bomb!”

WHERE IT’S GOING:

Not sure. The family
also has to find room for the 5,000 Maka-
veli CDs they bought for three cents each.

EBAY PO TEN TIAL:

Ress told his boys, “Who knows? We could sell it one day and use the money for college.”

ITEM:

Foot-tall “Moon Man” statue Snoop nabbed for Best Rap Video in ’94

WINNING BID:

$1,300

HIGH BIDDER:

Ad sales rep Julie Stumpus,
an original member of the test audience
for fledgling cable channel M TV
WHERE IT’S GOING:

“Maybe M TV would start a museum. I’d donate it.”

EBAY POTENTIAL:

“If Suge dies, then it’s going to be much more valuable.”

ITEM:

Pair of silk boxer-briefs, which may or may not have been worn by Knight

WINNING BID:

$1

HIGH BIDDER:

High school football coach John Ortega, who’s “been with Tupac since ‘Same Song’ and Digital Underground.” WHERE IT’S GOING:

Um, where else? “We

do wear the same size,” he says, “so, if it’s laundry day and I’m running low…”

EBAY PO TEN TIAL:

Slim. “They’re part of my rotation now.” MARY TRAHAN

ILLUSTRATION BY THE HEADS OF S TATE

MUSIC STUFF! ON SPIN.COM! NO KIDDING! / APRIL 2009 31