Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Remember that British import from the 70’s? We’d watch it religiously on the local PBS affiliate in the New York (WNET, “channel 13”).
A couple of months ago, Monty Python launched their YouTube channel and it’s become rather popular. The YouTube blog post on their “click to buy” program is getting results, specially for Monty Python:
We’re happy when we can help YouTube users enjoy the content they love, and we’re happy when we can help our partners build their businesses online – but we’re happiest when we can do both.
That’s why last year we launched our eCommerce platform for YouTube, which allows users to easily “click-to-buy” products — like songs and movies — related to the content they’re watching on the site. The past few months have demonstrated that great content on YouTube leads to increased sales. For example, when Monty Python launched their channel in November, not only did their YouTube videos shoot to the top of the most viewed lists, but their DVDs also quickly climbed to No. 2 on Amazon’s Movies & TV bestsellers list, with increased sales of 23,000 percent.
Nice sales increase.
Having clips up on video-sharing sites is good for business. Relentlessly pursuing “takedown” requests, one might argue, is counter-productive. I know I’ve had such requests in the past on clips I got from NASA, which is in the public domain. They’re still up, but the takedown requests can be a nuisance.
If people are profiting from pirated content, well that’s clearly a crime…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L57-vQvo34E]