Whose Video Is It, Anyway?

When YouTube was sued on July 14 for copyright infringement, the shock wasn't that the video-sharing service was being yanked into court. Questions had been swirling for months about whether the upstart, which now dishes up 100 million daily videos, was crossing copyright boundaries by letting its members upload videos with little oversight. What was surprising was that it was an individual who fired the first shot—Robert Tur, an independent photographer famous for filming the 1992 Los Angeles riots—instead of a big Hollywood studio or major music label.

The dustup spotlights the role the Internet increasingly is playing in letting artists and other individuals reach out and control media. But more to the point, it shows how YouTube is evolving into a sort of eBay (EBAY) for video: the first place you go to find a clip, but also a place where more folks are itching to get rewarded for supplying it. A growing group of creative types is furiously producing clips, video blogs, and animated shorts with the hopes of making money through advertising or selling DVDs.