Report: Indie Labels in Talks to Join VEVO Music Video Site

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 9, 2009 - 11:56am.

San Francisco - VEVO, the music video site in the works from Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube, Universal Music Group and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music, is in talks to sign on A2IM, a consortium of over 225 independent record labels, Wired.com reported.

Digital Music News initially reported that a deal had already been done, but A2IM president Richard Bengloff told Wired this is not the case.

According to remarks Bengloff made over the weekend at a conference in San Diego, it was RIAA president Cary Sherman who introduced him to the president of VEVO.

The Associated Press reported that Sony Music took an equity stake in VEVO when it signed on.

YouTube, for its part, told DMW that it has no equity stake in VEVO.

Equity was a sticking point for independent labels in negotiations to join the MySpace Music joint venture, Wired.com noted, and could play into negotiations between independent labels and VEVO.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/060709a2im

http://snipurl.com/jsp55 (DMW previous coverage)

http://www.a2im.org

http://www.vevo.com