YouTube and MySpace Face the Universal Music

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Digital Journal — It was only a matter of time. YouTube and MySpace are being accused of copyright infringement by one of the biggest entertainment companies in North America, Universal Music.

CEO Doug Morris pointed out how YouTube and MySpace users illegally post music videos and other content from Universal artists. “We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars,” Morris told investors Wednesday.

According to Associated Press, Universal’s talks with YouTube have faltered and a copyright infringement suit will be filed against the San Mateo-based company if no agreement is reached. Discussions with MySpace, owned by the monolithic News Corp, have been progressing.

Universal’s move to sue the pants off YouTube and MySpace represents an about-face for record companies who have used these popular sites to promote music and videos.

Honestly, it’s a dumb idea, especially in an era where the public is looking to sites for sneak peeks into artists they may actually spend money on. Doesn’t Universal get it? People can’t download videos off YouTube, or steal music off MySpace — streaming media doesn’t cripple a company’s bottom line, because it can only help promote artists.

If any social-networking site gets slapped with a heavy lawsuit, Netizens across the world likely won’t stand for it. They’ll rebel against the studio execs, claiming their right to snack-sized media shouldn’t be stripped from them. They may even boycott companies that seek to crush fan favourites like YouTube.

What will be interesting to watch is the reaction from both YouTube and MySpace. Will they give in to corporate demands and yank all copyright-infringed material off their sites? What kind of tweaking will they do to their sites in light of the lawsuit? Like any good soap opera, tune in to the next episode of this digital drama to find out who’s getting screwed by whom.