Sony and Grouper mash it up

Here's a good idea: If you're a movie studio and you're worried about copyright theft, just acquire a site that could contribute to the problem, and come to learn and control its piece of the business of online video sharing, which is a piece of the future. That, it appears, is what Sony is doing in buying Grouper.com. It's a business story more than a family-tech one, but it will affect the aspiring videographers and digital film producers at your house and school, in some cases providing new opportunities. The Associated Press reports that "in addition to featuring short videos uploaded to the site by users, Grouper also provides software that allows people to place those videos on social networking sites such as MySpace and Friendster using its peer-to-peer network. The software also allows others to email the videos to friends and to download them to portable devices." Not only can Sony sell ads on the site, but also "discover new talent," the AP adds. "One of the most popular features on Grouper is 'mashups' which encourage users to create new videos from snippets of other videos." Mashups are what Web 2.0, the participatory Web driven by our children, is all about (see "The age of remixes, mashups").