MUMBAI: Fans trying to watch Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance… video on MTV.com will get nothing but a black box where the video would be, along with text that says: We’re sorry, this video isn’t available now. We’re doing our best to bring it back….
MTV, which made its name from music videos is no longer carrying most of the videos from Universal on its web sites.
The absence of the videos is the result of contract talks breaking down between Vevo, the video syndication service partially owned by Universal, and MTV, which operates the sites MTV.com, CMT.com and VH1.com.
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Vevo began late last year, partnering with YouTube, Universal and Sony Music. The company distributes music videos around the Web, from its own site, vevo.com, to YouTube, AOL, and elsewhere. Universal, Sony, and EMI — three of the four major labels — have videos distributed through Vevo’s network. Warner Music has remained the lone holdout, and the label announced a deal in late June to have MTV sell ads against its music videos.
Universal gave Vevo the power to lead in a new licensing contract with MTV for its online videos.
In a statement, MTV said to the media, The two sides were unable to reach a fair and equitable agreement…. Universal, meanwhile said, MTV was unwilling to negotiate a fair syndication deal with Vevo to carry our artists’ videos….
Because of this impasse, Universal pulled its videos from the MTV sites at the beginning of the month. The videos are still being shown on MTV’s television networks, and Universal videos nominated for the upcoming MTV Video Music awards remain on the sites.
MTV suggested that they don’t think the negotiations are permanently doomed, and Vevo said, We are engaged in active discussions with MTV Networks, with whom we hope to work with in the near future as one of our syndication partners….
