After Warner Music Group forced YouTube to remove all of its music from the site back in January due to a dispute over royalty payments, they have made their way back on YouTube. Not just like that, the re-entry goes hand in hand with extensive branding, full custommade backgrounds and links to purchase the artist’s products. On top Warner has been allowed to sell its own ads against its own music videos AND and the user generated content that features Warner songs. The majority of the revenue goes to WMG with YouTube taking a (small) cut.

It remains to be seen if other labels will be able to do the same. Users have already been protesting against these changes which ‘abolishes’ uniform layout on the site. From a label’s point of view the move is only logical since YouTube is gaining fame (and money) from the ’stolen’ content. That YouTube is not exactly making money is secondary in this matter.

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