ON TRADITIONAL MEDIA VS. YOUTUBE & MYSPACE

GET READY TO RUMBLE

Well, the traditional media industry is finally snarling at the YouTube and MySpace phenomena.  As AP reports:

"Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris said the wildly popular Web sites YouTube and MySpace are violating copyright laws by allowing users to post music videos and other content involving Universal artists.

"We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars," Morris told investors Wednesday at a conference in Pasadena.

"How we deal with these companies will be revealed shortly," he said."

It's been interesting that the traditional media companies haven't taken action earlier, much as they did with Napster 1.0 a few years ago.

Of course, things are a different this time around.   

For one thing, the needle for the media companies has moved more to greed this time around vs. from fear the last time around.  They've all been hoping to make nice with these new upstarts, and leverage their existing businesses off them, especially given the higher mainstream adoption of these services this time around my the coveted youth demographic.

For another thing, one of their own had bought one of the new upstarts (News Corp buying MySpace), and that gave them a bit of a pause.

Seems pause-time MAY be over.  Or may be not.

As AP further reports, the short-term reason seems to be part of a "carrot and stick" approach:

"Universal's talks with YouTube Inc. have deteriorated and the recording giant is set to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against the San Mateo-based company if no agreement is reached by the end of the month, according to a person familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the confidential nature of the negotiations."

So this snarling may just be a negotiating tactic. 

We're on the edge of our seats already.