YouTube.com decides to block pirated TV clips

YouTube.com decides to block pirated TV clips
YouTube.com, the popular online video-sharing site that lets users upload their own clips has decided to block pirated TV and movies by introducing a time limit of 10 minutes per file. The San Mateo, California-based company took this step after it was compelled by NBC to delete the clips of the "Lazy Sunday" spoof, which was originally telecast on "Saturday Night Live."

The site, which has increased in popularity by the spread of word of mouth, said in a posting on the site, "We're constantly trying to balance the rights of copyright owners with the rights of our users. We did some analysis of the videos in our system over 10 minutes in length, and we found the overwhelming majority of them were full length, copyrighted videos from TV shows and movies."

Meanwhile YouTube is teaming up with E! Networks to offer a broadband channel called Cybersmack. The channel will host numerous user-generated video footages satirizing pop culture. The channel kicks off on Friday and will offer $25,000 to the best Cybersmack clip. Commenting on the partnership, YouTube co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley said, "We see this partnership as a sort of mash-up between the E! Television viewing audience and the YouTube community, bringing the two together to promote compelling TV shows through entertaining short clips."

MTV2 and Dimension Films have also teamed up with YouTube to promote their broadband offerings eves as NBC and CBS have asked the site to remove all of their content. YouTube spokeswoman Julie Supan said that since its launch last December, the site has viewership of more than 30 million. But questions remain as to how the company intends to make money.

CNet news.com reports that at the Digital Hollywood conference, executives were impressed with YouTube's performance, but had the same questions on revenue generating methods. "It's not going to be a traditional model, that is for sure. Right now, we don't want to disrupt the user experience. But eventually, we're going to introduce extremely relevant ads that will benefit users and won't disrupt the service," said Supan.