YouTube has finally earned a successful case study for monetisation, thanks to a popular musician and a young couple’s wedding video.
It so happened that Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz from Minnesota, who were due to be united in holy matrimony, wanted to have an unusual wedding party.
They decided that the bride, the groom and all of their bridesmaids and best men should dance to the song ‘Forever’ by Chris Brown in the church. This unusual entrance was video taped and put up on YouTube, where it has become wildly popular.
So far, the “Forver wedding video” has been viewed by more than 12 million viewers, in just over a week, making it the most viewed and most discussed video on YouTube, globally.
The Forever Wedding Video
Rather than pull the video, or sue Google for copyright infringement, Chris Brown’s record company allowed the music to be used and InVideo Ads were placed to make it possible for users to buy the song from Amazon or iTunes.
A lot of users have responded positively to this offer, earning YouTube, Amazon and Apple a good amount of money.
The record company, Sony, and Chris Brown have also made a pretty penny, not to mention the badly needed positive publicity for Chris Brown that they have earned by not suing the couple for copyright infringement (a first for the music industry?).
While all of these beneficiaries have the young couple to thank for the unexpected bounty, the couple has not made a penny out of their own video. They were invited to appear on the Today Show in New York, along with all their guests. They are also using all this publicity to drive donations to the Sheila Wellstone Institute for violence prevention.
Hopefully this incident will be an eye-opener for video sites and music owners and show them that they can make money by other means than prosecuting consumers for sharing and downloading music.
