NBC Universal today launches its new comedy "broadband channel," DotComedy.  The site is an interesting reflection of YouTube in a couple of ways.  On the one hand, it's a pretty obvious effort to entice users into enjoying NBC Universal-owned content under the NBC Universal tent as opposed to elsewhere.  According to the press release it will focus on original, Web-only series, shorts, and pilots, and will also include clips from NBC's network library.  User generated videos will be part of the equation as well, though this is not yet live (and its terms of service not yet apparent):

Shoot and edit now, and get ready to upload your best videos soon. When? When we're good and ready, that's when. You're not my mom, you can't tell me what to do.

Written in a similarly cheeky vein is the DotComedy blog, Totally Viral:

That friend of yours — the one who always manages to send you links to the funniest, sickest, weirdest, stuff like, before it gets plastered all over the d*#m web? He's totally going DOWN.

We're spending our days scouring every nook and cranny (especially the crannies) of the Internets to bring you the freshest funny we can. Totally Viral sifts through the vast mountains of digital crap so you don't have to.

As that description suggests, the blog incorporates clips — largely on YouTube — and images elsewhere on the Web.  I'm always enthusiastically behind business sites that point to and talk about other sites (particularly competitors), but I suppose the DotComedy companion blog is an example of the guerilla marketing extreme to which this can go:  i.e., NBC Universal is affirmatively leveraging YouTube as part of its bait to attract YouTube's users.  (It's certainly possible this is by mutual agreement and/or design.)

Overall:  this looks like a promising effort, but could be improved by not trying so hard to be cute and/or edgy, and by engaging the online community in ways beyond simply capitalizing on users' willingness to share their own clips. 

Mostly anonymous intellectual property lawyer Ron from DC has an entertaining and informative clip on YouTube arguing that Tur v. YouTube should have a different outcome than MGM v. Grokster:

From the video:  "I do not believe Mr. Tur will be able to prove that YouTube has made money directly attributable to his video."  As Fred von Lohmann has written, this is a key factor in YouTube’s ability to invoke the DMCA’s online service provider safe harbor provisions, and as Fred further explains, the problem is "a bit [more] sticky" than lawyer Ron lets  on.  A fascinating upshot of Ron’s video is the creation of the "Friend of the Court Video" tag on YouTube:  an opportunity for YouTube users to tag their noninfringing works as such in support of the argument that substantial noninfringing uses preclude YouTube’s liability for contributory infringement.

Fred’s article concludes:  "YouTube’s investors poured another $8 million into the company in April, and you can be sure that money will go toward buying top-drawer copyright advice."  Among the first points YouTube’s  team will have to address is whether YouTube may in fact invoke the DMCA as a shield.  Plaintiff Tur’s lawyers have indicated they intend to argue otherwise:  "There are service providers — utility companies, so to speak — and there are content providers. And I would be very surprised at how [YouTube] could possibly qualify as an ISP within the meaning of (the act)."

Mack Reed has a related editorial in USC’s Online Journalism Review, Publishers vs. YouTube: Does either side win?, where he rightly points out that the more technology normalizes the "unauthorized propagation of information," the more the law is called upon to react and adjust.