Fans of music-industry drama and competitive shenanigans (this is all of you, right?) will want to make some time today for Bloomberg’s article ‘YouTube’s Trampled Foes Plot Antitrust Revenge’. It explores the question of whether YouTube has unfairly squeezed some companies out of its ecosystem in the past, and there’s a BIG section all about music-videos company Vevo, and its historic exclusive rights on selling ads within its catalogue.
“The Google unit set out to take control of this valuable inventory through aggressive contract negotiations, sneaky sales tactics and even an effort to buy its rival outright,” claimed Bloomberg, which goes into more detail on the alleged to-and-fro between the two companies: from Vevo threatening an injunction against ‘bullying tactics’ to YouTube’s moves to encourage artists to create non-Vevo channels on its platform.
“Once envisioned as a site that would compete with YouTube for views and ad dollars, Vevo is now mostly a logo with a small sales team,” claims the article – a blunt verdict that Vevo’s current team may well disagree with. In the piece, YouTube also provides its responses to all this: unsurprisingly, it has a different perspective.
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