Sea Change, New Attitudes on Pirated Material

MySpace and Viacom’s MTV Networks announced a deal that will partner them with Auditude, a technology firm that has developed a means of identifying whether uploaded video clips belong to a particular TV Network by recognizing unique electronic signatures.  Auditude approached these two companies with this technology, marketing it as a means of incorporating advertising.  Essentially, any content appearing on MySpace belonging to MTV Networks will be tagged, allowing either business the option of inserting ads.

This represents a significant change in attitude for both companies.  In the past, MySpace TV, the second largest video site behind YouTube, might have blocked this pirated material completely, while traditionally Viacom has attempted to keep its material from being posted without their permission.  It will be interesting to see if viewers will embrace these expanded freedoms even as their rights to commercial-free content are taken away.

“Now the shackles are off our users,” said Jeff Berman, president of marketing and sales at MySpace. “They are fully empowered, and the media companies get to monetize and get all the data from this. They know what is actually being consumed out there and get the benefit of the viral promotion.”

“We’ve been empowering consumers to use our content in new ways for a while now, and allowing uploads of our content has been a goal for us,” said Mika Salmi, president of global digital media at MTV Networks. “MySpace and Auditude were the first partners we found with the right technology, business model and user experience to do it right.”

[via NY Times Bits Blog]