Avril Lavigne

There have been a lot of reports online recently quoting Terry McBride - CEO of Nettwerk Music Group which manages Avril Lavigne - when he said at the Music Tank seminar in London that Youtube should have a check waiting for Avril in the amount of two million dollars!

Now a lot of the celebrity blogs and news sites are saying the money is owed to her for advertisements that appear on her music videos' Youtube pages. And Youtube does have an adsharing feature where they split income with individual video posters on their pages - but that actually ISN'T how Avril earned this $2,000,000 dollars... in fact, when I look at her "Girlfriend" video page (both the RCA and 'Avril Lavigne' account pages) there are no ads showing at all, although that may change over time or maybe could depend on the country you're visiting from.

Wired magazine reported on that statement Terry McBride made, and then posted updates including one where he explained in more detail where she gets that money from...

It turns out Youtube also pays artists who create content (like music videos) which "fans can then mashup up with their own creativity and share on Youtube".

He went on to say:
"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..."

So THAT is how Avril apparently earned 2 million dollars from Youtube - not from ads but for allowing fans to use her (copyrighted) songs and videos to create their own videos... although it doesn't appear she's actually been paid yet.

And that's that until next time! :-)

Original Post written: Friday, July 25, 2008