Axehole

It looks like YouTube, the wildly popular video sharing site, may soon replace MTV as the most important source for music videos. The site is in talks with record labels about offering current and classic music videos.

In other words, it sounds like they are going to break all the links we’ve added to videos at YouTube that were posted by music fans, and instead allow industry-sanctioned versions with ads.

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen said that it was hoped that within 18 months the site would “have every music video ever created”. The company plans to offer the videos free of charge.

YouTube claims 60% of videos watched online in the US are viewed on YouTube.

“Right now we’re trying to very quickly determine how and what the model is to distribute this content and we’re very aggressive in assisting the labels in trying to get the content on to YouTube,” said Mr Chen.