Friday, 18 July 2008

YouTube Finalizes Ad-sharing Deal with Lions Gate

Lionsgate, the movie studio, confirmed that it has reached a deal with YouTube to share revenue from ads that Google places on YouTube clips from the studio's movies. The deal was first announced by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and subsequently confirmed by Curt Marvis, president of digital media over at Lionsgate.

"There are things in our library like 'Dirty Dancing' that have been watched tens of millions of times and it will be nice to get paid for that and to set viewers in the direction of buying movies," said Michael Burns, Vice Chairman, Lions Gate.

He further added that the company was trying to work out a transactional model in which YouTube users can watch a clip, of say "Saw IV", then be served a link that will lead them to a service where they can purchase the full digital download of the film.

Talks about the revenue-sharing deal emerged after Lions Gate worked with YouTube to remove pirated copy from the site. There was no exact launch date for the branded channel yet but it is expected before the end of 2008.