Peter Kafka at AllThingsD.com is reporting that YouTube and Vimeo are close to a deal that would have YouTube buying a minority stake in VEVO. Remember in early December when YouTube and VEVO's content deal was set to expire and we needed a solution within 120 days? Well, here it is. The deal is not done yet and could very well fizzle out, but they are reportedly close.
It's our position here at IMVDb that YouTube and VEVO are just too good of a partnership for either party to let it slip away, so this is welcome news. When they work together, VEVO gets a massively popular distribution network for content, and YouTube gets incredibly popular content.
One key point in this deal is that long-term licenses will be in place so we don't have a recurring music video cliff associated with license deals. If YouTube does invest in VEVO, hopefully we'll have VEVO music videos on YouTube for a long time to come, without having to wonder if they'll be yanked off the site anytime soon.