YouTube and Warner Music Group announce an agreement to distribute on YouTube the library of music videos from WMG's world-renowned roster of artists as well as behind-the-scenes footage, artist interviews, original programming and other special content. In a first-of-its-kind arrangement, YouTube users will be able to incorporate music from WMG's recorded music catalog into the videos they create and upload onto YouTube.

WMG thus becomes the first music company to harness YouTube's leading video entertainment service to commercially distribute its music video catalog. More importantly, it becomes the first global media company to broadly embrace the power and creativity of user-generated content through a wide-ranging agreement with the category leader, enabling its artists to connect with a vast new audience in an entirely new way. WMG will have the opportunity to authorize the use of its content by the YouTube community by taking advantage of YouTube's advanced content identification and royalty reporting system, set for release by the end of the year. YouTube and WMG will share revenue from advertising on both WMG music videos and user uploaded videos that incorporate audio and audiovisual works from WMG's catalog. WMG's music video library and special artist content will be made available simultaneously with the launch of YouTube's content identification and royalty reporting system.

Allowing the Audience to Communicate and Interact with their Favorite Artists

WMG, one of the world's largest music companies and parent company to record labels including Atlantic, Warner Bros., Asylum, Bad Boy, Cordless, East West, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Rykodisc, Sire and Word, among others, will make available its entire video catalog cleared for Internet use to YouTube in order for their artists to reach and interact with a new audience while enhancing the entertainment experience on YouTube. YouTube and WMG expect artists to embrace this new opportunity to reach a vast new audience to promote and distribute their music. With this agreement, WMG also enhances its ability to act responsibly on behalf of its artists and to request the removal of copyrighted content from YouTube when an artist elects to remove it. However, with the new content identification and royalty reporting and tracking system, WMG plans to identify and locate WMG content with the intention of enabling consumers to continue to interact with and enjoy the works of their favorite artists on YouTube.

YouTube Advanced Content Identification and Reporting Architecture to be Delivered by End of Year

By the end of the year, professional content creators, including record labels, TV networks and movie studios, will have the opportunity to authorize the use of their content within the YouTube community by taking advantage of YouTube's new content identification and royalty reporting system.

YouTube has been actively working on the operational details and building the infrastructure for this innovative new framework which includes royalty tracking and reporting, and a sophisticated content identification system. This new architecture will offer media companies the following:

• Sophisticated copyright identification tools to help identify their content on the site;
• Automated audio identification technology to locate their works within user videos on the site;
• The opportunity to authorize and monetize the use of their works within the user-generated content on the site;
• Reporting and tracking systems for royalties, etc.