Vlambeer Makes YouTubers Monetizing That S@&% Easy As S@&%

from the show-me-the-money dept

I've argued in the past that YouTube videos, far from the bane of gaming companies' existence, actually serve to drive sales by informing the public of gameplay, graphics, and the overall quality of the product being offered. Yet, for reasons that escape me, some companies view "let's play" style YouTube videos as a threat and choose to restrict their fans' sharing their experiences. I happen to think that this is an indication of insecurity in the product, but it turns out not every gaming company is so myopic.

Meet Vlambeer, makers of the wildly popular Ridiculous Fishing game, which we've talked about before. The company found it was getting requests from its fans for permission to put some gameplay videos up on YouTube. Their reaction? Create a simple uber-permission tool granting each user forever-access.

Vlambeer has launched an express consent generator, aptly named "monetizethat$hit", which allows users to simply enter their username and come away with a document that grants them permission to make videos of the developer's games.The form, which has an entertaining tone, reads "This permission is (retro-actively) valid from the moment your service has been launched until the end of time / apocalypse / the events in Nuclear Throne become a reality. This permission shall not be limited to any territory, planet, solar system, universe or hypothetical alternate realities." It goes on to emphasize that Vlambeer loves to watch people enjoying its games, as it's creatively energizing.

This is what scientists refer to as being awesome. It's the trifecta of permissive use, a sense of humor, and engaging with fans. Perfect. And, while the company states its goal is to energize their own creativity, the end result of these fan videos is most likely the spread of information about the games themselves, driving future sales. It shows what relinquishing a bit of control can do for the business. On top of that, it doesn't hurt to build up some good will with your fans.

However, the Techdirt playbook doesn't end with permission and being awesome. Shaming cloners is in there as well.

Vlambeer also couldn't resist the opportunity to provide a bit of commentary. The end of the form states "Either way, if somebody can earn a penny or get filthy rich doing that, we're totally cool with that. That's not upsetting. It'd be upsetting if someone got filthy rich by, say, stealing our game idea and mostly replacing the main character with a ninja or something silly like that."

This is an obvious dig at Ninja Fishing, a not-so-subtle clone of Ridiculous Fishing that Vlambeer managed to beat out simply by being a better game and with a little similar social-shaming. Way to stick the landing, Vlambeer.

Filed Under: business models, connect with fans, let's play, monetizing, ridiculous fishing
Companies: vlambeer

Should Wedding Party In Viral YouTube Video Get A Cut Of Music Sale Profits?

from the questions,-questions... dept

Yesterday, we had the story of the incredibly popular viral wedding video, talking about how the music in that video, despite being over a year old and being sung by someone with massive reputation problems (Chris Brown, who assaulted his then girlfriend), was suddenly back in both the iTunes and Amazon top 5 downloads, almost entirely because of the video. Soon after the post went up, we saw that Google had just put up its own post highlighting it as a case study of a copyright holder monetizing an opportunity. Basically, Google allowed Sony Music to:

claim and monetize the song, as well as to start running Click-to-Buy links over the video, giving viewers the opportunity to purchase the music track on Amazon and iTunes. As a result, the rights holders were able to capitalize on the massive wave of popularity generated by "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" -- in the last week, searches for "Chris Brown Forever" on YouTube have skyrocketed, making it one of the most popular queries on the site.

But... as some in our comments began to wonder, shouldn't the folks in the video (or, perhaps the person who shot it) get some of that monetizing as well? After all, if we base our thinking on traditional RIAA-style thinking, the whole reason why there are suddenly so many new sales and renewed interest in Brown and this song is entirely due to this wedding party and whoever shot the video. Now, they might not want or care about the money, but just the fact that Google is hyping up the monetizing of the video... doesn't something seem wrong that the actual copyright holder of the video in question isn't getting any of that money? At the very least, shouldn't there be some sort of "referral bonus" or some such?

Filed Under: chris brown, monetizing, music, viral videos, wedding
Companies: google, sony music, youtube

Oh Look, Viral Video On YouTube Boosting Sales... And Reputation For Chris Brown

from the take-it-down! dept

By now, you've probably seen the video of the wedding party entrance for the wedding of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz (if not, go check it out). It's been seen by many millions of people, and the number just keeps on growing. The wedding party entrance is choreographed as the entire wedding party dances enthusiastically to Chris Brown's song Forever. The video, of course is almost certainly copyright infringement. Even if we assume that the church in St. Paul where this took place paid its public performance license, that would only cover the venue, not the eventual rebroadcast on YouTube. Now there are some who will insist that every streamed version of this song should require that a fee be paid. But, of course, if that were the case, this video almost certainly would not have been put on YouTube and would not have been seen by so many millions of people.

And what would have happened then?

Well, JohnForDummies notes that the success of this video is having a major impact for Chris Brown (who's reputation is, reasonably, in tatters for assaulting his then girlfriend, the singer Rihanna). Not that we advocate supporting someone who assaulted his girlfriend, but the video is having an impact. The song Forever has jumped into the iTunes top 10, despite having been released over a year ago. Also, the video itself has greatly outpaced an attempt by Brown to create a viral video "apologizing" for his actions.

It's not clear how the record label (in this case, a subsidiary of Sony Music) feels about this (see update below) -- though, I will note that embedding has been disabled on the video (Update: Embedding enabled again, so I'm adding the video below) and there is a link to buy the song on the YouTube page. At the very least, this suggests that Sony (which has a good relationship with YouTube, unlike some others...) worked out a deal to take advantage of the publicity around the video. Though, the disabling of embedding seems rather pointless. Embedding the video would likely guarantee far more views, and with it, more purchases.

Update: Thanks to a bunch of folks sending in the news that Google is now promoting this as a case study of a rights holder taking control over content.

Update: Embedding has been re-enabled, so here you go: Also... there's already been an amazing spoof video of the couple's "divorce" proceedings: I don't think Sony's "taken control" of this one yet...

Filed Under: chris brown, monetizing, music, viral videos, wedding
Companies: google, sony music, youtube

NBC's Rick Cotton Apparently Unable To Properly Monetize Value

from the why-does-he-keep-his-job? dept

I'm beginning to wonder if NBC Universal simply sends General Counsel Rick Cotton out to the press to make the most ridiculous, unsupportable statements for their PR value. Otherwise, you have to wonder how the man keeps his job, as pretty much any of his well-publicized statements should make shareholders question his business acumen. This is the guy who claimed that the government should force ISPs to filter unauthorized content because piracy was causing poor corn farmers to lose money (despite the fact that corn farmers are doing better than ever, and there's no evidence that they're impacted by piracy either way -- people can eat popcorn during pirated movies, too). He also suggested that police would be better off spending less on stopping bank robberies and more on piracy. Seriously. Then he was happy that NBC made it difficult for people to watch the Olympics online.

His latest claim doesn't quite reach the level of some of his earlier statements, but again it has you scratching your head over how he can have the confidence of his bosses. Over the weekend, he was apparently complaining that the only reason YouTube was worth $1.5 billion to Google was because the video of SNL's Andy Samberg "Lazy Sunday." He claims that YouTube received all of the benefit of this piracy, which catapulted it to stardom.

First of all, this simply isn't true. As a YouTube representative who follows Cotton noted, the Lazy Sunday video is pretty much impossible to pick out of YouTube's log files, since it had such little impact on traffic. But, more importantly, this is yet another case of a content provider overvaluing the content and undervaluing the delivery platform. Cotton seems to ignore the fact that the Lazy Sunday video on YouTube almost single-handedly brought a ton of people back to SNL after having given the show up. It made people pay more attention to SNL, in particular other Samberg videos.

Furthermore, if it's actually true that NBC got no value out of Lazy Sunday being on YouTube, then the entire NBC management team deserves to be fired. It was such a fantastic opportunity to rebuild SNL's brand, and here's one of the company's top executives flat-out admitting that he blew it. He really wants people to believe that he's so inept that a tiny startup with barely any revenue could capitalize on something that he could not? It's either amazing what poor vision NBC's management has, or it's just stunning that Cotton keeps his job.

Filed Under: content, lazy sunday, monetizing, rick cotton
Companies: nbc universal, youtube