YouTube doesn't need anyone else to talk about its popularity, we're all guilty of taking a few minutes of the day to watch a funny video, but the conversation recently moved into interesting territory as noted in yesterday's post by John Battelle.
Is YouTube worth a billion dollars? I have no idea--how startups are valued vs. what they generate for revenue often doesn't make a lot of sense to the casual observer. But, John and those in his comments section debate a great point: most of the content on YouTube is copyrighted material. They say content is king, but what happens when someone else owns the content?
The line gets very blury between copyright infringement and "fair use," which states people have a reasonable right to use copyrighted material for their own enjoyment. Going beyond that vague definition, either through file sharing or making copies, etc., apparently violates Fair Use.
Just for fun, let's say watching a video from the YouTube service does constitute Fair Use (give it the benefit of the doubt). What happens, then, when people rip videos from the site and embed them in emails to friends, on their blogs or other sites? Doesn't YouTube just become another pre-RIAA-neutered Napster?