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YouTube May Let You Charge Rental Fees on Your Videos

by Terrence O'Brien on May 4, 2010 at 09:20 AM

YouTube May Let Anyone Charge Rental Fees
Renting movies via YouTube is still a relatively new idea, but Google is hoping to expand its business (and lessen its reliance on advertising revenue) by allowing users to charge rental fees for uploaded videos. Hunter Walk, head of product management at YouTube, told MediaPost that the company was working on self-service video rentals for individual creators.

This will offer yet another way for creators to make money from videos they post to YouTube. Currently, Google lets hand-selected users make money via the YouTube Partner Program and Individual Video Partnerships, but the new feature could skip the reliance on ads and clicks, putting the power to monetize directly in the creator's hands.

Details of the program are scarce for now. Walk did not specify whether the program would be open to the public, or -- like the Partner Program -- be limited to selected creators. It was also unclear how much (if any) control over pricing would be given to the individual.

Opening such a program to the public raises concerns about copyright infringement and opens a door for scammers, but restricting rentals to "industry professionals" (whatever that means in this day and age) could simply push more independent artists to sites like Vimeo. [From: MediaPost, via: Mashable]

Tags: google, movies, onlinevideo, rentals, top, video, VideoRental, vimeo, web, youtube

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