YouTube Getting Ready To Take on iTunes?
By Anna Johnson on April 29th, 2009So who is going to dominate (legal) online video distribution? I’m betting on Apple iTunes, Amazon and YouTube. And while iTunes, in particular, seems to have cornered the market in selling video downloads, it looks like YouTube is preparing to be a contender.
TechCrunch reports that YouTube has expanded its test project in which a select number of content partners can provide video downloads to their viewers.
The YouTube partners in question are able to offer their video downloads either for free, or for a fee paid through Google Checkout.
Most of the videos in the test are available for about $1 each. The partner can also choose how they wish to license the video content – whether, for example, the content is available for private non-commercial use, or available under a Creative Commons license.
Since Google is eagerly looking to monetize YouTube, it’s likely that if it’s not already taking a cut of the download fee, it will do so eventually.
Depending on how fast Google can iron out things like licensing and distribution agreements with its content partners, we should start seeing it promoting its downloads business more and more over the coming months. No question, iTunes is doing well… why not YouTube?
Funnily enough, out of Apple, Amazon and YouTube, YouTube is the only one making huge losses. The other two are hugely profitable.
Fortunately for YouTube, it has still-cashed-up Google as its parent. Even so, the video service will need to stand on its two feet if it’s going to compete with Apple and Amazon, and Google can’t keep pouring money into a loss-maker forever…
