Intellectual Property Law

"Payoff Over A Web Singing Sensation Is Elusive"

By Marty Schwimmer

NY Times: "Payoff Over a Web Singing Sensation Is Elusive":

FremantleMedia Enterprises, a production company that owns the international digital rights to the talent show, hastily uploaded video clips to YouTube in the wake of Ms. Boyle?s debut, but the clips do not appear to be generating any advertising revenue for the company. The most popular videos of Ms. Boyle were not the official versions but rather copies of the TV show posted by individual users.

The case reflects the inability of big media companies to maximize profit from supersize Internet audiences that seem to come from nowhere. In essence, the complexities of TV production are curbing the Web possibilities. ?Britain?s Got Talent? is produced jointly by three companies and distributed in Britain by a fourth, ITV, making it difficult to ascertain which of the companies can claim a video as its own.

Full post as published by Trademark Blog on May 25, 2009 (boomark / email).