YouTube is definitely the Internet's flavor of the month, but some critics wonder if the video sharing site is walking the same thin line Napster, the first peer-to-peer file sharing service, once
walked and fell off. Just as Napster made it easy for users to download free music, YouTube makes it easy to download free video, and often, that video belongs to copyright holders. So far, YouTube
doesn't police the site for copyrighted content, but it has adhered to requests from media companies to remove clips belonging to them. The company also hasn't been sued yet; in fact, many Hollywood
studios have described YouTube as a "good corporate citizen." For the time being, advertisers might want to steer clear of the video sharing service, as there is an abundance of pornographic material
on the site, despite that being a violation of the site's policy. At the beginning of this month, the company's founders, a pair of 20-somethings, said users were posting 35,000 new videos daily at
the site and watching more than 35 million videos per day. Thus far, the young site's growth is due to two phenomena: the proliferation of high speed Web access and word of mouth.
Read the whole story at Associated Press »
