Just wanted to update a part of your article related to how Avril is (apparently) getting that $2 million check from Youtube…

Wired Magazine eventually got in touch with Terry McBride (avril’s management) who was quoted as having claimed that figure, and it doesn’t come from ads on her official Youtube video pages, but another method that most are probably unaware of…

According to Terry, Youtube has an agreement to pay the owners of IP (‘Intellectual Property’ I think that means) a certain amount of money when fans use their videos in their own videos. For instance I guess if someone did a video slideshow of Avril Lavigne pictures with the song “Girlfriend” playing in the background, or a bunch of kids acting out the Girlfriend video (with the actual song in the BG), etc.

In the Wiredarticle hersays:
“My comments came during the Music Tank seminar and the concept of artists creating content that fans can then mashup up with their own creativity and share on Youtube.

To date Avril’s songs have been used over 200 million times on Youtube with a substantial percentage being fan generated. Youtube has deals in place with the stakeholders of the IP (Publishers, Labels, Songwriting societies) that sees a share on a pro-rata basis in the advertising income created from these social activities. In time this will generate a few million dollars in income for all collectively involved…”

Full article here: blog.wired.com/music/2008/07/avril-lavigne-a.html

Bye!

And does anyone question the logic? Like, why would Sharifa publically announce the existance of a cheat? How is it that out of the increasing millions of videos on youtube, Avril’s fans suddenly come up with a working cheat that nobody else had? And how is it that out of all the millions of user accounts, people seem to imply that Avril’s fans are the only one’s who would cheat if they could ?

It seems logical to me that if Avril’s fans would try to increase that traffic counter by any means imaginable, they would NOT be the first to try, nor would they be the only ones. However, Avril’s target audience includes younger ages who have more time to sit and defend her image against the tireless offenders who go add views to Girlfriend’s counter to insult her. This only stirs up conversations that multiply the view counter hits with reloads to update the comments so they can continue the arguing back and forth. That’s 1 user adding to the competitor’s view count, mulitplied by the number of users who respond.

If you dont see the pattern, I’ll spell it out for you. Avril Lavigne is a primary target for lies, rumors, and insults, so most gossip about her will be presented in the worst light. So instead of a report like ‘Bandaids attempts publicity stunt’ they would rather target Avril and discredit her popularity, and instead of Avril haters saying, “Ha ha – you got caught trying to cheat youtube!” they believe we actually DID cheat. Funny thing is, so many Avril haters are complaining about how many views she has, but are the main instigater of the increased traffic.

First off Youtube’s charging a $15CPM for banner + overlay. Even if the numbers were right, she’s not taking home 99% of the ad revenue.

Next is that while her fans can spike the view count through an embedded player scheme, none of that is generating ad revenue. There are no ads on embedded videos and no advertiser is going to pay for ad-free impressions.

So if 100MM of her views came on an external site and the other 30MM actually have ads displayed, she’s only getting paid for that 30MM.