YouTube, having grown hugely popular for its user-generated videos, is in talks with major labels to distribute music videos online.

Intending to offer more mainstream content, YouTube Tuesday said it is in talks with record labels, negotiating rights to post and archive thousands of music videos online, and intends to offer the videos free, reports Reuters. "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," cofounder Steve Chen is quoted as saying.

YouTube wants to integrate the music videos into its community features, allowing users to add them to their profiles and post reviews. Warner Music Group and EMI have confirmed that they have been in talks. The sides are attempting to hammer out a business model.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday YouTube suffered its first unplanned outage, which lasted six hours; it blamed a database-related issue.