NBC Partners With YouTube

Cool! But wait, is it? YouTube just announced a deal with NBC to bring promos of the network’s primetime lineup and other content to the YouTube website starting this fall. Not only will there be promos, but there will also be internet-exclusive content, and behind-the-scenes videos. First up in rotation will be content from "The Office", then "Saturday Night Live," and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." It sounds great, actually….but then I started thinking - if the networks sign on with social video sites like YouTube, that gives them a lot of leverage and power to boot out the copyright violators they find uploading content to that same site. And who are these dastardly copyright violators? None other than the most rabid fans of their shows! Who else will make video montages of their favorites scenes from their favorite shows? Or make music videos from their favorite shows set to their favorite songs? Fans do! And this user-created content is what makes a site like YouTube so fun. Partner up with the major players - the networks, the studios, the labels, whoever - and the grey area of copyright law will become very black and white. I’m not so sure this is a good thing.