Born Curious

Chris Brown’s people couldn’t have asked for better PR. Here’s hoping it doesn’t make people forget why he’s been shunned in the first place.

Over the last ten days (July 30, 2009), 12 million people have watched Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz’s funky wedding march on YouTube, demonstrating the video site’s enduring viral power — and that (at least some) people from Minnesota have some pretty good dance moves.

Now YouTube, which is owned by Google, is pointing to the video as a sign that it is forging a positive and profitable relationship with the music industry. In a blog post this morning, the company said that the amateur video, set to the Chris Brown song “Forever,” had sent sales of the year-old song skyrocketing to #4 on the iTunes chart and #3 on Amazon’s MP3 store.

In the past, labels like Warner Music have sometime objected when people (or their cats) used copyrighted songs in homemade YouTube videos. Sony Music, Chris Brown’s label, used YouTube’s content management tools to claim the song and overlay a click-to-buy ad on the video, which directs viewers to download the song from either iTunes or Amazon (earning YouTube a commission).

YouTube is not specifying exactly how many sales the video is responsible for, but says the number of users clicking through to buy the song is twice the average of other videos on the site.

Anybody else notice that the video at the end now has a tag to encourage people to donate money to end violence? When I first watched the video on July 24 (and I will it admit, it brought tears to my eyes) there was no tag (and no “buy this song” overlay either.)