

OK Go Ditches Label Over YouTube Embedding Rights  - ilamont
http://www.fastcompany.com/1578965/ok-go-ditches-record-label-after-very-public-tussles-over-youtube-embedding-rights?partner=homepage_newsletter

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orblivion
How do they have the rights to this video suddenly? How did they make it
embeddable? Did they buy it from EMI?

~~~
decode
In an interview I can't find right now the band explains that they came up
with the idea of supplementing the income from the video with a corporate
sponsorship. EMI helped them negotiate a sponsorship deal with State Farm (in
return for a plug at the end of the video), so then EMI allowed the video to
be embedded, since it was making extra money from the sponsorship.

Edit: It's this interview on NPR:
[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1245329...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124532979)

"Mr. KULASH: Yeah, we made the Notre Dame version of the video about three
months ago, and we put that one up. And following the label's sort of standard
procedure at that time, it wasn't embeddable, and we just got a lot of
response from our fans, people really upset that they couldn't put it on their
sites, and they couldn't blog about it, and they couldn't sort of include it
in their Internet. It had to be done the way EMI wanted them to.

So before we made our next video, we looked for corporate sponsorship, which
would allow us to roll out the video the way we wanted to, and to be fair, EMI
helped us find corporate sponsors, who turned out to be State Farm. And State
Farm agreed to cover the cost of the video if we would thank them at the end
of it, and they left the creativity entirely to us. And it was sort of it's
kind of like, you know, 17th-century patronage of the arts. We got to do what
we wanted to do, and we put a thank you on the end, and that's it."

------
jrockway
Dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1183138>

~~~
warfangle
It may be a dupe, but this article has some interesting statistics of how
their album sales have increased since making the video embeddable. Anecdotal,
sure, but interesting nonetheless.

The article linked to above is just a short blurb..

~~~
dasil003
There are far too many factors at play to attribute the increased sales to
such a small aspect as video embedability. However the label certainly
appeared to be completely braindead in this regard. What harm could possibly
come from allowing embeds?

~~~
natep
I believe an OK Go member said that YouTube will only pay royalties for the
song if it is watched on their site, and not embedded. The label would rather
get the guaranteed $ from each viewing of the video than the potential $ from
getting more exposure.

~~~
orblivion
See, it's easy to call big old businessmen stupid, but there's more to these
decisions than consumers can see. Not to say you shouldn't put on pressure for
them to change, but respect what they decide in the end, and move on if it's
not worth it to you.

~~~
yesimahuman
Since when do you have to respect another company's business decisions? In the
end, there is content we want, and the company is making it harder for us to
get it. Nothing respectable from a consumers point of view about that.

~~~
dasil003
If that was the reason then I would agree with the GP, but the real reason is
virality. A music video is a promotional tool, not a cash cow.

