Amateur video sharing grows online

The early video sites differ in another key aspect.

With the exception of Flickr, the popular photo-sharing sites tend to promote sharing within a circle of friends and family, generally by sending links.  Most of the video sites, however, encourage sharing with the world.  They make the task easy by grouping video by most watched or highest rated, and they let users tag clips with keywords so others can search for all clips on bowling, for instance.

And while photo-sharing sites typically sell prints and photo-imprinted mugs, there's no commerce counterpart for video, which can consume 10 times as much storage and bandwidth — even after compressing files and reducing resolution.

So video sites are exploring a range of revenue models, including advertisements, which rely on huge audiences.  After all, video ads already precede segments at news Web sites like CBS.

"But the question is, `Are those same strategies going to work when users are viewing user-generated content?'" ClipShack's Francis said.

A few services, particularly newer ones aimed at moms reluctant to share family footage with strangers, are relying entirely on subscriptions.

Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Snapfish, for instance, charges $25 a year for the video-sharing service it unveiled this month, even though its photo service is entirely free.   Both emphasize closed communities — one must already have the link to watch.

And then there's Revver Inc., which relies on ads but shares revenues with users who submit video.

"It is a new frontier," said Steven Starr, Revver's chief executive.  "The migration of video onto the network is upon us, and the rules of that migration are being worked out as we speak."

Intellectual property owners also must grapple with these services, some of which are littered with skits from "Saturday Night Live" and music video segments.

As studios and networks expand online sales of already-aired shows through services like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes, look for them to more aggressively pursue violations.

"This is an evolving landscape," said Rick Cotton, general counsel for NBC Universal.  "As we get into partnerships ... to make material legitimately available, we are increasing and escalating our efforts to police against the unauthorized and extensive infringing of materials."

(MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)

The video-sharing sites promise to remove copyright materials — as well as pornography — when requested, but they also say that some such clips are actually authorized or tolerated for their promotional value.

Another gray area involves music playing in the background.

"If you are lip-synching a Prince song, do you owe Prince royalties to that?" asked Trevor Wright, chief executive of the Sharkle Inc. video site. "The industry needs to and will begin to figure these things out."

Entertainment lawyer Mark Litvack said copyright owners may not go after every use in amateur movies, but video that becomes an overnight sensation likely will attract attention. Fair use, he said, does not always protect even home movies.

But there's no doubt content providers see value in sharing.  Just this month, CBS Corp. began offering some shows through Google, which lets amateurs and professionals alike charge viewers for video, with Google getting a cut.

There's also great interest among advertisers.

A news site can produce only so much video on its own, Wright said, but user-generated content is limitless, driven by personal ego: "People want to share things they've done, places they've been, creations they've made and so forth."

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