Online music video giant Vevo turned two this month, and they’ve got a bill of $100 million in royalties paid to labels, artists and songwriters since 2009 to prove it—an interesting aspect, considering that music videos have traditionally been given away for free for record promotion since MTV began broadcasting in the 1980s.

Today, viewers can click to watch literally tens of thousands of videos for free whenever they want, and Vevo capitalizes on that fact by collecting revenue from advertising rather than charging viewers a fee.

“We’re growing revenue in a way that doesn’t try to get people to pay for something they have never paid for before,” said CEO Rio Caraeff in an interview with the LA Times.

With some 63 million unique viewers playing Vevo videos just since November, Vevo essentially doubled its traffic from 2009, which saw some 27 million views from various videos.  The company is not yet profitable, but Caraeff said that he expects to begin making a profit sometime in 2012.

The company reportedly plans to expand its business to begin streaming video to Xbox Live subscribers and regular living room televisions as well.

“The question we wanted to answer when we began two years ago was whether the audience for music videos could be monetized in a way that can sustain a business. We’ve seen the answer is yes,” Caraeff said.

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