Rev Your Engines. Then Hire A Lawyer.

Karl Long at Futurelab’s Blog says content makers will follow the money, and that Revver is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the YouTube craze.

YouTube may be an upstart but it is going to get killed if it doesn’t find a way to compensate the content creators, because the content creators will follow the money in a heartbeat.

The Diet Coke + Mentos team has made $15,000 from it’s viral video being viewed on revver.com, as reported on PaidContent.org.

The Diet Coke + Mentos team? Karl, these are consumers with no formal attachment to, nor relationship with, these two brands. And while Revver looks good on the surface, once there is profit tied to these so-called consumer-generated virals, lawyers will descend in a hurry. For instance, how long before Mentos and Coke want a cut of the action on the aforementioned 15 large?
I know, I know…the brands should see these virals as free advertising and embrace them. But money changes things. One of the things it changes is the innocence factor. With a profit motive in place, amateur videographers will no longer be seen as brand zealots causing no harm. Rather, they will be seen as interlopers, using brands out of context for their own enrichment.