"This is a game changer," Berman said. "This takes us from a world of 'no' to a world of 'yes,' where the audience gets to curate content, express and share it as they choose, while copyright holders are not only respected, they get to make money."
Auditude Chief Executive Adam Cahan, a former executive of Google and MTV Networks, said he joined the company a year ago when it was still based in Los Angeles because he was intrigued by the prospect of helping media companies reach their fans across the Web. He has already signed up Warner Bros.
He says Auditude can identify virtually any professional video uploaded across the Internet because it has indexed more than 1 billion minutes of professional content, including 250 million videos and four years' worth of television from 100 channels. Then content owners can decide whether they want to run ads with the content.
"What we saw was a problem, and we tried to bring a solution to it and make it into an opportunity," Cahan said.
A number of companies, including Santa Clara, Calif.-based Vobile Inc., whose technology is used by some major Hollywood studios, are also working on ways to help companies make money from their copyrighted content.
"Everybody is moving in that direction," Vobile CEO Yangbin Wang said.
But, says Vance Ikezoye, CEO of Los Gatos, Calif.-based Audible Magic, "it's a tough problem to solve." He said video providers were starting to experiment more.
"The first stage was clearly more focused on 'How do I protect my content as a copyright holder and how do I keep from being sued as a site publisher?'" Ikezoye said. "The stage we are entering now is much more about openness to try new business models to try to monetize the content."
Mika Salmi, MTV Networks' president of global digital media, said he welcomed all potential solutions to what has been such a vexing problem. "We are looking for consumer-friendly, copyright-friendly solutions that fit everyone's needs," he said.
Gartner media analyst Mike McGuire says Salmi's attitude is typical of media companies nowadays. "They realize the Web is not their enemy, that it is a place where they can find other ways to monetize their content," McGuire said.
Audiences have been migrating to the Internet, but making money from online video has been a challenge. Google does not break out results for YouTube, which it bought for $1.7 billion in 2006. But it continues to search for ways to squeeze revenue from it.
Once a wild frontier for unlicensed content, YouTube has gone to lengths to clean up its act, replacing unauthorized clips with approved material from HBO, Lionsgate and other producers.
As it faces growing competition from Hulu.com, a joint effort by NBC Universal and News Corp. that offers clips and full-length episodes of popular shows, it has begun to welcome longer videos, not just clips.
YouTube recently struck a deal with CBS to show full-length episodes of some television shows such as "Dexter," "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Star Trek."
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jessica.guynn@latimes.com
