YouTube's Partner Program has adopted a closed model.

One of the things I admire about Google AdSense is that it is simultaneously one of the world's most open advertising networks and one of its most successful. This "open" model for advertising online has always made sense to me -- why wouldn't you want your ads to be seen by the largest number of people possible? -- but few networks can provide the considerable administrative and enforcement manpower needed to ensure that advertising will continue to work for both publisher and advertiser. AdSense and AdWords aren't perfect, but they do still work for a lot of people, including me.

Google decided to follow a very different route to sharing revenue with the video publishers of YouTube. The YouTube Partner Program requires prospective earners to meet three criteria before they can join and start making money with their videos: publishers need to put out "original videos suitable for online streaming," they must have the legal right to upload whatever they are uploading, and their videos must be popular. The last point is what this post is about, though the first two help explain why the third exists. If you are a budding video publisher, you probably would rather not do as YouTube is forcing you to do. Why would you want to put out a bunch of videos, wait to become popular, and only then start monetizing your work? Given the sudden (and often brief) explosions of popularity that online videos are prone to, waiting to be accepted into the program means losing revenue. You might well wonder, then, why YouTube won't just accept anyone who doesn't violate the terms of service into the partner program. Why can't it be easy like AdSense?

The first two criteria for joining the partner program are essentially warning those who upload copyrighted content that they need not apply. Nonetheless, copyrighted content remains a big draw for YouTube; plenty of people upload it, and many more people view it. It is probably true that most video publishers who regularly put out original content that get a lot of views are going to be less interested in getting booted off YouTube and losing out on future revenues on their videos just so they can get some quick views by uploading copyrighted content. If your only video is thirty seconds of your baby sleeping, you might just be a little more tempted to try to make some quick bucks using someone else's work. Additionally, the fewer people that apply to the YouTube Partner Program the less the stress placed on the staff that must review the applications. Thus, YouTube has strong organizational and legal motivations for experimenting with a closed revenue sharing model.

In the long run, I do hope the YouTube Partner Program opens up to everyone. It shouldn't be harder than AdSense -- video content shouldn't be discriminated against just because video copyright issues are more of a hot button issue than web site copyright issues. As of now, this isn't a big deal because YouTube is such a force in the web video world; it has the audience already, so publishers come to it in droves. Still, some publishers will be tempted to monetize their videos in other ways and at other venues instead of trying to first prove themselves to YouTube in order to be allowed to make money. An easy way to monetize creative work encourages creativity, but barriers to entry, even minor ones, tend to dissuade it.

It's interesting that so many people still use free hosting for their original videos even when their videos are the main content of their sites -- bandwidth concerns seem to have created this situation which has put the hosts in a position to dictate the rules to the publishers. There is, however, plenty of competition in the video sharing world despite YouTube's dominance. The YouTube Partner Program will have to compete with Revver and other sites that might offer publishers a better deal (and a smaller audience).