News: Karaoke is popular in Japan and, of course, elsewhere. So what happens when thousands of people record themselves karaoking and post the videos on YouTube? Well, for Japanese music, YouTube has worked out a 1-year royalty deal to pay Japan Rights Clearance to allow people to continue to make these amateur karaoke videos and share them online. A similar deal has been hashed out with JASRAC. (More)
Analysis: Good deal. This deal benefits the public and those Japanese amateurs singers or just karaoke fanatics on YouTube. YouTube is essentially acting as an intermediary and arranging the copyright deal that ratifies the user practice. I have an article coming out in October that discusses the importance of these user practices -- I will share a draft soon. The Japanese deal raises a couple questions in my mind:
1. Will a similar deal be hashed out in the United States, with the likes of ASCAP and others? (It may well be that YouTube's prior deals with some of the music labels/publishers may have covered some of this.)
2. How can YouTube afford to pay for all of this? YouTube is doing a public service right now by enabling people to do a lot of things with video without the need for users to get copyright licenses, but YouTube needs to make money somehow.