Libertarian Librarian

YouTube is wildly popular, and has revolutionized media sharing and how people think about, and access, video. But a goodly number of clips on the website are copyrighted, and like all sharing services that include copyrighted material-- Napster anybody?-- sooner or later they will feel the wrath of those being copyright infringed upon. In Napster's case, it was the record companies and a number of prominent artists. For Youtube, it's Viacom.

Perhaps Viacom's lawsuit is merely a negotiating tactic. But then again, maybe not. Either way, it will be interesting, and very, very precedent setting, to see how this sorts itself out.