First fame, now cash for stars on YouTube

The budding comedians and quirky entertainers who helped YouTube earn $1.65 billion from its sale to Google Inc. are about to start getting their own paydays.

YouTube said Friday that it soon would start rewarding its top-drawing performers with better promotion and a cut of the revenue it generates from placing banner ads around the online videos.

YouTube isn’t the first online video company to share money with its contributors. But the deal marks the first time that the likes of lonelygirl15, LisaNova, Renetto and the comedy duo Smosh will receive the same treatment that YouTube gives more-established entertainment industry players, such as CBS Corp. and the BBC.

“We hope this is the beginning of the recognition that a lot of the content created by the members of the YouTube community has as much merit as content contributed by our professional partners,” said Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing at YouTube.

The announcement came as San Bruno, Calif.-based YouTube fights with some traditional media companies that see the website as a source of pirated TV shows and video clips.

The Football Assn. Premier League, an English soccer league, and Bourne Co., an independent music publisher, on Friday sued Google in a New York federal court, alleging that game highlights and songs such as “Inka Dinka Doo” had been posted without permission. They are seeking class-action status for their lawsuit.

In response, Google said that the plaintiffs misunderstood copyright law and that the suit threatened free expression on the Internet.

New York-based Viacom Inc. also has sued Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, alleging copyright infringement. The media giant said shows from MTV, Comedy Central and its other cable channels had appeared on the site without permission.

“Without producers of original content, they are just a pirate site,” said Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff.Plenty of professionals have given YouTube permission to post their videos. The website says it has deals with more than 1,000 content creators, including CBS for highlights from the March Madness college basketball tournament and “The Late Show With David Letterman.”

But in many ways the partnerships announced Friday signal a return to YouTube’s roots.

The site was created in 2005 as a forum for amateur videographers. By providing financial incentives, YouTube hopes to ensure that the most polished of them continue to create videos that keep viewers coming back.

It’s also an attempt to convince Madison Avenue that amateur videos aren’t just stupid pet tricks and can be good for promoting products.

“From an advertising perspective, there’s still a basic skittishness relating to sponsoring or being part of or around user-generated content,” said Tim Hanlon, senior vice president of ad consultant firm Denuo.

YouTube began contacting some of the more-popular producers in February to discuss a profit-sharing arrangement, which was finalized recently.

One amateur is Terry Roth of Allentown, Pa., who goes by the name Zipster08 on YouTube. The 56-year-old openly gay professional musician began posting videos in August.

“I put on a hat, I put on my glasses, I took out my teeth and I became a character,” said Roth, who describes his character as “kind of a Pee-wee Herman thing.”

Roth said he was amazed that his sordid tales of sex, drugs and rock and roll -- all true, he added -- managed to attract about 10,000 subscribers, some of whom raised money for him to participate in forthcoming YouTube gatherings in Europe.

“It’s like, what do these people see?” Roth said. “Whatever it is, I’m going along with it.”

One of the first celebrities to emerge from the video mosh pit that is YouTube was lonelygirl15, whose earnest postings drew millions of online viewers before her persona was unmasked as fiction. Miles Beckett, one of the online show’s creators, applauded the site for starting to share the wealth.

“We think it’s fantastic that YouTube is supporting content creators,” he said. “We believe that it will encourage even more creativity in the burgeoning field of Internet video.”

Although they lack YouTube’s traffic, video-sharing sites such as Revver Inc., Metacafe Inc. and Break.com already pay contributors.

Steven Starr, chief executive of Los Angeles-based Revver, said YouTube’s decision to start paying contributors would help the “creative diaspora” flourish online.

“The outcome over the middle term should be an entirely new set of creative voices sustaining their careers using technology,” Starr said. “And it is, to our way of thinking, a cause for celebration.”

dawn.chmielewski@ latimes.com