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“What we really want to do is in six to 12 months, maybe 18 months, to have every music video ever created up on YouTube,” - Steve Chen, co-founder YouTube in a Reuters interview on August 15 2006.

The music, digital, and old media industries got very excited when Chen shared those words with us almost exactly one year ago.

A month later Doug Morris, Chief Executive of Universal Music Group shot back:

“The poster child for (user-generated media) sites are MySpace and YouTube. We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of million of dollars.”  (speech at an investor conference on September 13 2006)

My how times have changed (at least for some). Shortly after the trading barbs, both sides worked out an agreement, but it was never clear if this would ever amount to anything for content owners. On Thursday, Universal — home to 50 Cent, Amy Winehouse and U2 — declared a small victory.

The world’s largest music group said since it started experimenting with putting its music videos up exactly a year ago Universal now has the most viewed video channel of all with an aggregate of 158 million views.

UMG has overtaken CBS and NBC with its 4,000 music videos up on YouTube. Other major music companies also have their own channels or label channels on YouTube including Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Bros Music.

As for Chen, well, he’s got another four months to get every video ever made on the service.