http://boztopia.com/?p=5Google, intellectual property, media, user-generated-content, video, YouTubehttp://boztopia.com/?p=5#comments

I knew it wouldn’t be long after Google devoured YouTube for the first signs of how the new, “legitimate” video-sharing behemoth would act. If you’re a media mogul, the news is good. If you’re a user, not so much.

First, YouTube performed a mass takedown of media clips from Japan after a copyright-protection group complained. That’s not unusual in and of itself–YouTube has always complied with the “takedown” notices sent by companies–but the scale of the removal was impressive, as was the speed of the response.

Now comes the news that YouTube shared data on at least one user with Universal, when the studio accused them of uploading clips from one of their properties. This seems to be part of the site’s new “Blame The User” defense when it comes to hosting potentially copyrighted or otherwise “marked” properties.

This is one of those cases where everyone wins except the user. Lawyers and media companies get to reap a wonderful new revenue stream from lawsuit settlements, YouTube gets the advertising revenue from people looking for cool content while throwing them under the bus, and studios get a cut of the bucks. Meanwhile, as more and more videos and film clips get deleted from the site, watchers will be stuck with endless clips of dancing monkeys and faux- performance art like “Lonelygirl15″.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.