Myspace and MTV to profit from Fair Use

EVER HUNGRY for revenue, social not-working website Myspace and cable network MTV will trial new technology this month to profit from video clips uploaded by Myspace users.

Using video-fingerprinting and ad-serving by third party firm Auditude, Myspace will tack overlay advertising onto uploaded video content originally carried by some MTV channels.

The imposition of adverts will supercede Myspace's former practice of automatically taking down uploaded MTV video clips upon being notified of the alleged copyright infringements.

A subsidiary of US entertainment conglomerate Viacom, MTV Networks operates a number of cable TV channels such as Black Entertainment Television (BET), Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and Spike. Myspace is owned by Fox, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

MTV Networks will trial only a few current and archived series using Auditude's technology, including Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report".

The ads served by Auditude will be what is called an 'attribution overlay', a semitransparent strip covering the lower third of the video clip window. The overlay will identify the content owner along with links and might also include a sponsoring advertiser's message with links.

MTV Networks of course regards Myspace users uploading video snips of its programmes as 'piracy' while Myspace users may view their sharing of TV clips with friends as Fair Use.

Myspace will soon see how well its not-working subscriber base reacts to having their video clip uploads monetised with added advertising. µ

L'Inq
Reuters