(cc) by shankar, shiv/flickr

Universal and YouTube have announced the creation of a joint music video site, apparently called 'Vevo'. After the Google subsidiary's recent trouble with music collection body PRS and their announcement that they're losing money fast this comes against an interesting backdrop.

What isn't entirely clear is what either of the parties gets out of the deal.

(cc) by jonsson/flickr

If you were wondering what the recent spat between YouTube and the UK music industry association PRS was all about, look no further than the announcement today from Google about how much money YouTube is losing. Hint: it isn't a small number!

On earnings of $240m, they've managed to lose $460m by spending a whooping $700m in costs. Possibly the strangest part of the sums is that they put $360m down to bandwidth expenses. We know that streaming video is mighty expensive, and that YouTube foots the bill for anyone and everyone to share footage of their cats doing somersaults, whilst making money from advertising on a tiny fraction of their content.

But the big question in my mind is how they managed to spend the other $360m? The relatively minor updates they've made can hardly account for this in development costs. Not can I imagine advertising the service or junkets for the press or potential partners could rack up this bill. It's possible they (notionally) charge internally for placements on Google's other pages, so they've racked up a whopping advertising bill, but only from one part of the massive conglomerate to another.

(cc) by shankar, shiv/flickr

There's trouble a-brewin' for online music in the UK, after YouTube decided to start pulling music videos from UK users of its site, in an escalating row with PRS, the collection society which collects and pays out fees for music usage in the UK. With YouTube claiming that PRS has hiked its fees in its negotiations for a new contract, rendering YouTube's notoriously non-profit-making offering even more anti-profitable, and the PRS claiming it's just trying to get a fair rate for music being used (very effectively it should be added) on Google's bandwidth-busting site.

Negotiations continue, so hopefully the stand-off will be resolved. In the meantime, The Guardian offers eight ways to survive without music on YouTube.