Pandora's 'digital' box

The power of the free market is such that it can (and will) commodify everything from fresh water to professional sports. Whether it's tanning salon-induced melanoma or reselling compost yard trimmings, someone is always trying to make a buck, even off "high art." \nOnce considered man's triumph over beast, artistic expression is now openly traded like baseball cards (albeit priceless baseball cards). Christie's Auction House stopped bidding for Pablo Picasso's "Boy with a Pipe" at $104 million, and just last week Sotheby's announced the sale of a rare Rembrandt for $25.8 million -- before commission. \nSince it was founded in February 2005, YouTube has similarly been cashing in on the blood, sweat and tears of the artistic community. True, few art critics would rank a gassy infant, or the "Urban Ninja" amongst the likes of Picasso -- or even Tommy Chong -- but YouTube believes that creativity ought to be financially rewarded as well.\nUntil very recently, YouTube had been pocketing the millions in advertising revenue generated by the Web site, even though the site's content is entirely user-created. However, last week the BBC reported that YouTube (a subsidiary of Google) would begin sharing the ad revenue with contributors in the coming months. Similar video-hosting sites already split the money 50-50 with the copyright holder, though hosting is conditional on the video being profitable. The specific details regarding how the revenue is to be divided and distributed are still being negotiated, but the alarming consequences of YouTube's decision are abundantly clear.\nAccording to Harris Interactive, a full 42 percent of Americans have used the site, and 32 percent watch less TV as a result. Online ad space is becoming more valuable by the day and before too long the potential profits will be too great to ignore. In the spirit of capitalism, amateur filmmakers and starving artists will forgo creativity in favor of a wider audience in much the same way that broadcast television networks sacrifice content for ratings (see "American Idol").\nNow that copyright owners are being paid for their contributions, traditional media outlets are attempting to bypass the FCC's decency standards. NBC, for instance, made headlines late last year after uploading an uncensored "Saturday Night Live" skit, "Dick in a Box." In the original broadcast the sketch had been bleeped out.\nThough it won't be long before "wardrobe malfunctions" are a thing of the past, most of YouTube's 70 million users are still penniless teenagers without production budgets. Thus, profit-driven entrepreneurial uploaders will be forced to compete with both high-end studio productions, as well as one another. As each user attempts to outdo the others, the videos will get progressively bigger, crazier and more dangerous. If a user slaughters 500 kittens on Monday, you can be sure that by Wednesday someone else will have eaten the meat and turned the fur into a coat.\nJust imagine a world in which every idiot with a camcorder can film his or her own episode of "Jackass." By inadvertently kicking off a viral video arms race, YouTube has opted to sacrifice inspiration on the alter of economic viability.