July 31st, 2006
YouTube vs. Revver: controlling and monetizing content
In “Now playing at YouTube? ‘Coke and Mentos’ vs. ‘Lazy Sunday’” I discuss inconsistencies in public reaction to YouTube regarding copyright protection:
Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, the not-quite-amateur creators of the video clip viral sensation “Diet Coke and Mentos,” have posted a message at their Website: ‘Please do not post our videos on sites like YouTube and Google’…
zefrank talks about the recent Los Angeles News Service $150,000 copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube and references the possible ‘death of YouTube.’
NBC, however, when it stood up for its copyright in the SNL video “Lazy Sunday” earlier this year by demanding that YouTube remove unauthorized NBC content from its service, did not benefit from such Web 2.0 community support…
NBC was deemed by many to be ‘clueless’ and some recommended a NBC thank you to YouTube, in place of its ‘Cease and Desist’ order.
Similar inconsistencies seem to be manifesting in regards to public reaction to YouTube’s Terms of Service and Revver’s Terms of Service.
Revver says:
You, your licensors or other third party providers, as applicable, own all intellectual property rights in and to your Content.
YouTube says:
For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions.
Revver says:
In connection with your use of the Site, you hereby grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) to Revver a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable right and license to use, copy, adapt, publish, transmit, distribute, perform, display, reference, index and cache, in any form, medium or technology now known or later developed, your Content and any materials you submit to Revver, in whole or in part, whether created by or for you.
YouTube says:
However, by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube’s (and its successor’s) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.
Revver calls its license “perpetual,” “royalty-free” and “irrevocable.”
YouTube, however, limits the term of its license and says:
The foregoing license granted by you terminates once you remove or delete a User Submission from the YouTube Website.
While it would take an expert legal opinion to provide a definitive comparison of YouTube’s TOS versus Revver’s TOS, a straight forward reading of the above excerpts suggests that the YouTube TOS are more favorable to content owners, in the long-term, than the Revver TOS.
Perhaps “amateur” video enthusiasts are predisposed to favor Revver’s TOS as they may be enamored of Revver’s presumably content creator focused revenue share model.
How can YouTube share revenues with those who upload content to its site when it doesn’t seem to have any revenues to share?
More importantly, Revver may be more advertiser focused than amateur content owner focused.
In “Revver: advertiser-driven videos?” I discuss how Revver suggests video creators make their videos not only advertiser friendly, but product friendly as well. I quote Revver’s FAQ:
How advertiser-friendly your content is will definitely impact on how much you make. If you create an extremely popular video that’s relevant to a particular type of product, advertisers will likely bid more to associate with it, and you’ll make more money.
I also discuss Revver’s advertiser and product friendly stance in-action:
To date, Revver’s most successful video clip is, in fact, ‘an extremely popular video that’s relevant to a particular type of product.’ The video is actually named after two products and the two products are the ‘stars’:
‘The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments’ What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints?
