YouTube & MGM Partner for Full Length Movies

Monday, November 10th, 2008 by Jordan McCollum

YouTube & MGM Partner for Full Length Movies

Well, apparently full length films are coming to YouTube a bit sooner than the end of the year: YouTube and MGM announced today a partnership to show MGM’s full length movies and television shows on the most popular video site on the web.

But will these just be their straight-to-video or B-movies, or popular blockbusters? New hits or old favorites? A mixture, it sounds like, as the NYT reports:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios will kick off the partnership by posting episodes of its decade-old “American Gladiators” program to YouTube, along with full-length action films like “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven” and clips from popular movies like “Legally Blonde.” These will be free to watch, with ads running alongside the video.

However MGM Co-President (what?) Jim Packer said the studio will start slowly on YouTube&mdash, but that he didn’t foresee a significant part of the studio catalog on YouTube anytime soon.

As part of the deal, YouTube and MGM will collaborate in identifying copyright clips from the studio’s movies and shows. Additionally, the Times gives us a little peek at YouTube content identification system:

YouTube has also developed a system called VideoID. It allows media companies to spot unauthorized clips of their material on the site, and then either remove the clips or leave them up and sell ads on them. As part of its deal, MGM will begin scouring YouTube for studio clips, from properties like the James Bond and Rocky franchises, and pulling many of them from the site.

But MGM will also work with YouTube to choose which clips can remain online, supported by advertising.

Sounds similar to the Auditude software and deal MTV & MySpace Video recently announced.

The NYT looks at other studios that might consider similar partnerships, including Time Warner and MGM’s parent company, Sony. However, YouTube has more than pirated content keeping these companies away:

Many Hollywood executives complain that YouTube’s online presentation is too cluttered. They also say they are more comfortable with the cleaner, better organized Hulu, which does not have amateur-created videos and which sprang from their own ranks. Hulu had 6.3 million visitors in September, according to Nielsen, and has more than 100 sponsors trying out creative forms of advertising, like interactive games.

YouTube, the most popular video site on the Internet, is playing catch up to a one-year-old, corporate-created site. Will the MGM deal be enough to change that?

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22 comments on “YouTube & MGM Partner for Full Length Movies”

Money Saving Expert Says:

November 10th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

WOW – you tube is finally moving somewhere. I mean further than just porn, and happy slap movies. It is doing something useful.

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SoLinkable Says:

November 10th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

I like the idea, but we’ll see how this goes…

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Saad Kamal Says:

November 10th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

I wonder how will they cover the massive bandwidth usage..esp if they allow Embedding of those videos in external sites

If they can come up with a desktop client (just like what meta cafe did), they can probably make those full-length movies only available to the ones with that Youtube Desktop client software installed — this way they can give a better movie experience to the users and also if they want they can use the P2P technology to save some bandwidth cost.

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Stephen Says:

November 10th, 2008 at 10:05 pm

This could actually make you a lot of money if you are careful. When the talks were rumoring about Time/Warner I was buying shares like crazy. It was a risk that paid off big.

Google is not going to make a move that would put them under so I think it is fairly safe to say that this move is going to be a good one.

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Monday Feed Fodder « Marketing Breakdown Says:

November 10th, 2008 at 10:50 pm

[...] & MGM Partner for Full Length Movies (Marketing Pilgrim) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) will post full length television shows and movies on YouTube by the end [...]
Goran Web Design Says:

November 11th, 2008 at 4:23 am

I don’t mind saying that I’ll be very surprised if we see any quality full-length new releases on Youtube any time soon… but I have been wrong before.
go green Says:

November 11th, 2008 at 5:22 am

This could go really well or really badly. I just hope they don’t decide to start selling videos on youtube and only stick to using ads as a source of revenue.

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Busby SEO Says:

November 11th, 2008 at 5:26 am

If they allow Embedding long videos in external sites we�ll see how this goes�

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Nicole Price Says:

November 11th, 2008 at 8:29 am

One can eventually expect two clearly distinct offerings from within each presenter, one for feature films and the other for the present type of popular offerings.

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Apple Macbook Says:

November 11th, 2008 at 8:58 am

This is going to lead to even more problems with piracy I would have thought?

People will just use video downloading tools to download the film and then sell it on the streets.

I can’t see this working unless they begin to charge for every showing of the film.
SEO Tips South Africa Says:

November 11th, 2008 at 11:25 am

Where there is smoke there is undoubtedly fire. YouTube needs to find some way of turning a profit, maybe the ads being flighted along the movies will help with this issue.
Internet Entrepreneur Says:

November 12th, 2008 at 6:21 am

This is great news and one of the steps towards the web 3.0 era

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Ultimate Blackhat Says:

November 12th, 2008 at 12:16 pm

Even though YT is the largest video website I never actually go on it because its such a pain to find a decent video on there. Front page is usually packed with video bloggers and spammers. They need to move somewhere soon.
Diamonds Says:

November 12th, 2008 at 12:45 pm

Sweet, more decent movies you can stream.

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Ami Ohayon Says:

November 12th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

Any new venture that launches with ten year old reruns of American Gladiator is, perhaps, missing the point of the Internet and the expansion of media content providers that it’s spawned.
Salihu Says:

November 13th, 2008 at 1:06 am

I guess the video pirates will be happy with this arrangement.
Cure Says:

November 13th, 2008 at 3:54 am

This is certainly the right move. Am curious to see how this moves.
galin Says:

November 13th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

You Tube moves to the right direction. The opportunity to see the full-length films is amazing and I would be the first to take advantage of it.

However what about video pirates and all those people who will be able just to copy the film and get money? Does the YouTube�s staff take this into consideration?
PS3 Says:

November 14th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

If their servers can handle it, then a good move. If not, total madness.
YouGov Says:

November 15th, 2008 at 8:26 am

I think this is a necessary move for youtube to stay competitive as other sites now offer a good service in this area.
OSYM Says:

December 6th, 2008 at 12:15 am

I don’t mind saying that I’ll be very surprised if we see any quality full-length new releases on Youtube any time soon… but I have been wrong before.

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Busby SEO Test ikel » Blog Archive » Youtube New HD Format Launch Today Says:

December 6th, 2008 at 10:26 am

[...] screen. Maybe this is the prior action before Youtube launch their plan to giving audience to watch full length movie on youtube ( this is still roumor?). If so youtube must preparing extra security for this new plan specially [...]

Marketing Pilgrim