YouTube to pay for User Generated Content

Steve O'Hear at ZDNet has just posted an article discussing a statement made by Chad Hurley, YouTube CEO.

Chad noted at the World Economic Forum that the company plans to financially compensate users who produce and upload their content. Other sites such as Revver and Brightcove have long offered a revenue-share to content creators, where YouTube has sought to only do deals with old media, in an attempt to avoid litigation over copyright infringement.

Steve also notes that, "With Google's purchase of YouTube last year, followed by more aggressive attempts to monetize the site (such as the deal struck with Verizon Wireless), I think it was inevitable that YouTube would come under pressure to share some of those fruits with ordinary users."

Revver and Brightcove already offer monetization of uploads. I tried Revver with a few of the CN videos and made 18 cents in about 2 weeks. It will be interesting to see what the payment plan will be for YouTube.  This feels like a strategy to attempt to further crush the competition and continue to grow YouTube over the others. Just a hunch, but I can’t picture every person on YouTube will make money.

Here is a video from Jeff Jarvis at the World Economic Forum.