YouTube finally starts to go legit

[Image: youtube vid]The New York Times today reports that YouTube is purging copyrighted clips all over the place.

I think there are fundamentally two options for Google’s YouTube: either they arrange a licensing system where they host user-uploaded copyrighted content with ads, or they don’t get to be really really web 2.0.

Given Google’s history running Google Video, I think it’s unlikely that YouTube will continue to host “illegal” material in such large quantities. But as long as Google doesn’t get rid of the “instant upload” that makes YouTube fundamentally so much nicer that Google Video, there will always be piracy uploads.

The problem is that there needs to be a way for users to upload clips they’ve recorded and want to share, because there’s just no way that the content providers themselves will be able to supply the clips that people want in a way that makes everyone happy. That’s back to “control” marketing - and this is all about the corporation not being in control.

Maybe a system where the user can tag what “network” their clip comes from, and then YouTube can have a stock set of endroll ads they can tag onto the video.

The problem is that Calacanis is right about 70% of YouTube’s traffic: it goes to copyrighted video uploads. If content providers don’t continue to bite, which frankly, they should, YouTube may be in for a rough ride.