This weekend I was bunny-trailing on Youtube for soccer videos and after watching new transfer Arjan Robben dominate in Munich, I stumbled upon “Best of Ribery” video, a compilation of little moments of genius by the French soccer player set to music from the Warner Brothers catalog. Which song you ask? I have no idea, since Warner’s latest trick to keep people from listening to their music is to have Youtube disable the audio to videos that contain any. See the notification underneath the video, in the screencap below. Since I can’t hear the music, I can’t fall in love with it, and I also won’t be able to muster up the impulsive desire to go to iTunes and drop a quick buck to purchase the song.
Now lets consider the most recent success in viral videos, the “JK Wedding Dance”, which features the bride, groom and ushers/bridesmaids dancing to the isle to Chris Brown‘s “Forever”. The video itself was not a fake, as it was genuinely home-made and uploaded by the wedding party, but the viral success of the video was one cleverly constructed by Chris Brown’s people over at Sony. There’s a few articles out there show illustrate how the label chose to not force a take-down, but instead helped promote the video behind-the-scenes, and without the wedding party’s knowing, getting it featured on Youtube (possibly in exchange for a payment), working it almost like they would a single to radio, providing a buy link for the song and sitting back while the cash flows in. See the screencap below. This track actually made it to the top 5 best selling songs on iTunes, way after it was originally released. Now that’s the smart way to handle it.
I’m not one to give Sony a lot of credit for being a smart company most of the time, but in this case:
Warner = Ostrich, burying their head out of fear, ignoring opportunities.
Sony = Fox, cleverly rolling with reality and making money in a cunning way.
