MySpace To Take New Tack With Copyright-Protected Videos

NEW YORK (AP) - MySpace is taking a different approach in dealing with people who post copyright-protected videos on its site.

It says instead of trying to remove all such videos, it will let some of them stay. And instead, it will give the creators of those clips the chance to pick up some of the revenue from ads that will be linked to the clips.

MySpace is teaming up with an ad technology company to work with Viacom to put ads in clips of shows that are uploaded to MySpace. Examples of such clips include “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central and “The Hills” on MTV.

In the past, MySpace would try to keep such clips off its social network. Now it will overlay ads on the clips in an attempt to satisfy both users who upload them and the companies that own the rights to the video.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)