YouTube competitor Muzu’s new recipe for Cooking Vinyl


28 Jan 2009

Just weeks after securing deals with top labels EMI and Beggars Group, Dublin-headquartered music site Muzu TV has signed another licensing deal with Cooking Vinyl, the label in charge of iconic acts such as Blondie, The Charlatans, Billy Bragg and Gary Numan.

Cooking Vinyl joins the ranks of other recently signed major and indie labels such as Sony BMG, Skint Loaded, Ministry Of Sound, Armada Music, Defected Records, Cherry Red Records, Ninja Tune, SPV and hundreds of others that have joined the Muzu service.

“Cooking Vinyl is a fantastic coup for Muzu TV users globally,” said Ciaran Bollard, co-founder and director of business development at Muzu.

“The support from highly respected labels such as Cooking Vinyl further helps to materialise our goal to become the de facto partner for the music industry, and the best place for fans to watch, create and share music-video playlists. We are delighted that Muzu TV users will also get exclusive access to unseen video footage that we are digitising on behalf of Cooking Vinyl.”

Muzu TV provides fans with an online location to generate, view and share music video playlists. Users can create video playlists from thousand of videos and embed them on their social-networking sites.

The site provides free access to thousands of hours of diverse music-video content including concerts, back-stage footage, documentaries, tutorials, music videos, interviews and classic music TV shows such as The Tube.

Unlike YouTube, Muzu TV shares royalties generated from videos with aspiring acts and artists.

“To date, we have resisted doing deals with a lot of online video platforms because we didn’t feel their offering fairly compensated our artists, and had the right focus,” said Martin Goldschmidt, founder and managing director of Cooking Vinyl.

“Muzu TV is different from other online video sites – it was purpose-built for the music industry, and we believe it holds great revenue potential for our label through a music-focused service. We see Muzu TV as being a key online video partner going forward.”

By John Kennedy