WSJ: Copyright concerns slowing YouTube ad growth

In a detailed analysis of YouTube's advertising potentials and pitfalls (sub. req.), the WSJ's Kevin Delaney explains that copyright concerns stemming largely from Viacom's lawsuit against Google are a big factor that's prevented YouTube from broadening its advertising base. 

According to Delaney, only about 4% of YouTube's 85 million+ videos have advertising associated with them. This sadly hilarious video of a narcopleptic dog is a good example -- someone has just peeled it off the air and reposted on YouTube, almost certainly without permission from the TV station that produced it. As you can see, there's no advertising on the page.

YouTube is working on multiple ways of solving this problem. The first is by inviting content producers into the "partner" fold, allowing them to post their own material and have control over which content comes with ads (and YouTube gets a cut of the revenue). The second is YouTube's video identification system, which lets partners search for any copied (slash unauthorized) versions of their clips. Once they locate the copied clips, they can choose whether they want to remove them, or 'monetize' them -- that is, sell ads against the pirated version.  Pretty brilliant, if you ask me. 

Someone call the producer of this narcoleptic dog story -- he could be making a few extra bucks.