“Starting this weekend, YouTube will be dipping its toe into the waters of paid content. This behavior follows a trend we’ve noted in traditional media outlets. First, media mogul Rupert Murdoch said no more freebies for search engines, then the New York Times hinted (and today confirmed) that users would have to start paying for a certain amount of access to articles. Now, YouTube is partnering with the Sundance Film Festival and filmmakers to charge users around $5 to view a range of movies from the 2009 and 2010 festivals.
It’s still cheaper than a movie ticket – but is this a direction users will follow? Five Sundance films have been selected for this venture. It’s what we’d consider a test run to see how users will respond to paid content on the site, and whether this could be a new revenue stream for the web video giant, which has historically struggled with profitability.
The films include The Cove, an underwater adventure about dolphin capturing in Japan; Bass Ackwards, which chronicles an improvised road trip; Children of Invention, about two Bostonian orphans; One Too Many Mornings, a “coming of age comedy about two guys who are too old to be coming of age”; and Homewrecker, a comedy about a locksmith. The filmmakers will determine the exact asking price for viewing each movie, but all will be in the range of $5.
YouTube execs told USA Today the move is helping independent filmmakers find distribution avenues for their films. The movies will be shown without ads, which would be an aesthetic disaster for any director who chose to put his creation online.”
Read more at ReadWriteWeb
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Grrrrrrr!!
At first I thought ‘no,’ but I realised, if I was one of the film-makers, I’d probably want remuneration. From the look of it, only certain content will be charged. So long as the premium content is worth it and there isn’t any great loss to the free content, then I’m all for it. It helps YouTube stay afloat and, as the article says, helps independant film-makers find an audience.
this could be one of two things:
)
a great way to see movies for CHEAP
or a gatway to yotube going down the hole. (they are getting rid of the five sar rting systym too
but how would people pay? I don’t want to be giving out a credit card number to youbte (Google) they have enough info about me on thier servers now. I love technology, but some things are going a little too far…
I don’t think it will work. The market decided long ago it is willing to pay nothing and the market also long ago figured out ways to monetize their online endeavors. The music industry is finally catching up and the studios are to an extent as well.
Remember not that long ago you would search youtube for a song only to find it later removed (audio/video or both). Nowadays you are more likely to hit a page on youtube that is smart looking and official. There might be an ad at the start of the music video.
I am also 99% sure that Apple releasing it’s tablet next week and that is driving some of this. Apple approached the NYT (and others) about content delivery for a fee. NY Times, YouTube and others need to be more creative in ways to make money and take their razor sharp focus OFF the consumer to pay for it.
I dont think it will work very well. Yes its marginally cheaper than a cinema ticket but the quality of viewing thru youtube is very poor. I wouldn’t want to pay for it. Cinema is an experience. You tube is an amusing dalliance.
That’s not how the internet works. We’ll just have to google the movie and watch it on the next best video site (usually myvideo or vimeo). Paying for theoretical content or memberships to sites on the internet is ridiculous.
I don’t mind the idea of helping independent film makers and paying to watch their films on youtube, but if this is a success they might start wanting to charge for other things too, and I think that would really start to ruin the whole point of youtube- that anyone can make a video and anyone can watch them.
Well I think this should be an option. I can indeed imagine that in-depended filmmakers (and some of them make great films which hollywood doesn’t see a market in) to turn some profit for their next project is a good thing.
Otherwise these arthouse movies will hardly ever be released and eventually not made. Nothing wrong with Hollywood blockbusters but I like some good indepth movies with intelligent dialog once in a while as well.
As an option okay to pay for all youtube content well… no….
To pay for news articles uhmmm no…. Then I watch the tele to get the news.
There’s a place for both free content (this is what the internet is about) and commercial but not solely commercial that would go against the foundation of the nets vision to share information for free with everyone who wants it.
Great way to lose users; if it costs on you tube it’s free somewhere else.
gee, what a surprise. considering how much money they’ve been hemorrhagingy, what took em so long? :/
I have played some youtube vids where the sound goes out of sinc in less the 8 minutes! how they think they will get entire films to work I don’t know.
All those films sound lousy, though…
They’d be better off having a donate button. People won’t pay for stuff like that, especially if it’s by an unknown. If YouTube goes premium, people will vote with their feet and go somewhere else where they don’t have to pay.
I totally agree with Matt Moog – I’ll always pick watching a film at the cinema over the internet any day. The cinema & all that goes with it is lovely. Watching internet stuff, esp a film on YouTube is not the best viewing experience in the world. It’s ok for a few minutes or for just a short prog, but a film you’ve paid for? No thanks. But conversely, I can understand why this is happening though. Knew it was just a matter of time.
LC x
I’ll wait for it to come on TV.