Glenn Otis Brown, products counsel at YouTube, dismissed the idea that there is some "magic bullet" or a "unifying theory" that will solve the music monetization question. Google is a company that knows something about monetizing content, but as Brown readily admits, serving up contextually relevant ads against text is a lot easier than serving them up against video or music.
Brown does believe, however, that ads will "go a long way" toward supporting musicians as they distribute their music without the help of major labels. However, the YouTube attorney, who was previously executive director of the Creative Commons, added that ads won't support the industry alone. He thinks other revenue sources such as licensing, touring and merchandising will be necessary supplemental sources of revenue.
Watch Brown and the other panelists on the social networking and music panel at yesterday's
San Fran MusicTech Summit below:
- Joshua Jaffe
Joshua Jaffe is general manager of TechConfidential.com.
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