It’s one of those rare occasions, where I could imagine it might be fun to work in the legal department of big olde media. One day you’re writing the TOS for a YouTube-look-alike (how to distance yourself from all this user uploaded content, whilst still being able to monetize the whole load). Next day, you have to ponder how to sue YouTube (how to transfer Google-riches into our pockets because of copyright infringement of user uploaded content).
Seriously. That’s the German situation. RTL Group, Europe’s largest broadcaster, is running Clipfish. Haim Saban’s ProSiebenSat.1 acquired MyVideo.de. And, not too surprisingly, both sites are virtually pornfree - but laden with copyrighted material. MyVideo hosts a large collection of RTL’s German Idol-version Deutschland sucht den Superstar. Clipfish sports a nice collection of TV Total excerpts, one of Pro 7 main shows. Which might be business as usual. If especially RTL wouldn’t usually fight for (or, better: against) every digital bit and byte. Online video recorder, PVRs, ad blocker, you name it. Seems like web based videosharing will be OK.