YouTube to share revenue with contributors

YouTube’s recent announcement that the company will now share advertising revenue with premier content providers will represent one of the most important milestones in the emergence of “user-generated media” as a major force in the media and entertainment industry.

According to YouTube’s blog, contribtors, including Lonelygirl15, LisaNova, renetto, HappySlip, smosh, and valsartdiary, “will begin to participate in the same revenue sharing and promotional opportunities that are available to YouTube’s other partners.”

The company gave few details on the exact workings of the program, but they did say the following: “Participating user-partners will be treated as other content partners and will have the ability to control the monetization of the videos they create. Once they’ve selected a video to be monetized, we’ll place advertising adjacent to their content so participating user-partners can reap the rewards from their work.”

Some users worry that commercialism will corrupt the free-wheeling, DIY culture that YouTubers have established. The news has also sparked much discussion about ownership and the unauthorized use of copyrighted material, especially with respect to the ability of users to make money from videos that contain copyrighted music or clips. These details will need to be sorted, but I think that enabling individuals to monetize their contributions to user-generated sites is a positive step.