Business model for media-related social networking sites

Does being acquired with tens billion dollars prove a new business model for media-related social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube? Not quite. The recent legal suit against MySpace   for copyright infringement by Universal Music Group (UMG), UMG’s licensing agreement   with You Tube, and YouTube’s deal with Warner Music Group to distribute the latter’s music video catalog emphasize the importance of copyright to those sites. Even for acquiring company like News Corp. and Google, finding out a way to solve this issue is quite a challenge. Law suits have once brought down Napster is the threat if they fail to do so. Technology to keep track of the video and audio contents is not at all easy and such an investment requires a good return. In theory, the companies can use these sites to provide ads and its own or contracted copyrighted contents. However, reduction of number of users, and problem of collecting money from its users are big headaches. More importantly, if this cannot be resolved, it can loom the ever-high enthusiasm for similar ideas in the future.