These days it seems music fans love music vids almost as much as artist’s sounds, nobody really needs to be reminded how Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ and Sia’s ‘Chandelier’ have been immortalised for their unforgettable clips, however would you pay money to see these kinds of music film clips before anyone else?
According to Music Business Worldwide (via A Journal Of Musical Things) major labels including Universal and Warner are hoping to sell “exclusive subscriptions” through the brand-spanking new online video website, Vessel.
Vessel, in tandem with some leading labels will charge $2.99 a month for users to gain access to new music videos three days before they are released elsewhere, i.e YouTube.
This seems pretty bizarre for a number of reasons, first of all, this is the year 2015 – once something appears on the internet just about anyone can download it and repost somewhere else – which almost instantly shoots down Vessel’s idea of “exclusivity for 72 hours”.
In addition to that major flaw, it feels rather silly that major labels would want to make music fans pay for music videos which were traditionally seen more as an advertisement of an artist – should we really be handing over money for this? Do the likes of Universal and Warner need to create a whole new competitive market of paying to watch film clips?
Having launched just yesterday, Vessel is the latest to the online video game and despite the likely partnership with Universal and Warner, the website will not host only music videos, but a plethora of different types of screenings akin to industry leader, YouTube.
Their major drawcard is through their payouts to content creators where 60 per cent of subscription revenue will go to rights-holders along with 70 per cent of all the advertising revenue generated by their content, which is stronger than YouTube’s 55 per cent.
That’s not to say Vessel are bad guys, they currently have a free sign-up service too which provides users with non-exclusive stuff including a host of Vevo videos from major artists such as Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Adele and Pharrell Williams.
