Advanced Television

MTV uploads for MySpace

November 4, 2008

MySpace US users can now upload MTV Networks videos without fear of having them taken down. News Corp's MySpace social network has signed a deal with Viacom's MTV Networks and online video technology company Auditude to allow the automatic identifying of online video clips uploaded by its hundreds of millions of users. Auditude's system will also let content owners automatically to attach relevant online advertisements to these clips, making the profiting from user-uploaded videos much less complicated.

An internal study conducted by Auditude, which is also working with Time Warner's Warner Bros, showed viewers had uploaded 20 times the number of video clips compared with those uploaded by content owners, while viewership of those clips uploaded by viewers were six times higher than the same clips uploaded by content owners. "There was a disconnect between what audiences were doing and what content owners were doing," Adam Cahan, chief executive of Auditude, told the Financial Times. "What we wanted to do was include what users were doing and bring them into the process and turn what they're doing into a form of syndication."

Viacom is suing YouTube for $1bn because it doesn't prevent users uploading unauthorised clips. YouTube says it takes down clips when content owners complain and this complies with current law.

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