Music Business/Law Tips - "Making Money From Videos"

Artists these days can make money off the videos that they upload to YouTube. The money is called "ad revenue" ("AdRev"), and its generated by inserting or allowing ads in or attached to videos. The main types of ads one can get paid for are set forth below to see the differences: 1. "Bumper Ads" (short ads of a few seconds that cannot be skipped); 2. "Sponsored Cards" (ads that offer products for sale that appear in the video); 3. "Display Ads" (ads that pop up to the right of video); 4. "Skippable Ads" (ads that play for a few seconds before they can be skipped); 5. "Overlay Ads" (banners that pop up under the video); and 6. "Non-Skippable Ads" (a 30 second ad that one must sit through to watch the video). In order to participate in YouTube AdRev, first an artist must join YouTube's "Partner Program", and then create an "AdSense" account to monetize the ads (but one has the option of opting out of some/all types of ads or just for certain videos). Normally, an artist will want to allow all types of ads to maximize profits (unless he/she has strong feelings about being associate with a product, for instance). The ads are generally placed randomly via an algorithm where YouTube is trying to target market based on an artist's and the artist's videos metrics/data. Since its hard for new artists to make money off record sales these days, AdRev is a good stream of income (and any video can be monetized - not just the ones that have millions of views - but as the views increase so does the AdRev). Ben McLane Esq benmclane.com