Paying for a Beating on YouTube?

So YouTube is starting to feature ads. That's not surprising. What is interesting, though, is the way the arrangement strips advertisers of some of their traditional control over context -- and, therefore, content.

Consider this: You're ABC. You license a clip from Grey's Anatomy to YouTube, then stick an ad for Lost on it.

Some popular entertainment blogger then embeds the video on his site—in the middle of a post slamming both shows as two of the worst pieces of dreck ever to blight the airwaves.

Let's say 10,000 visitors watch that clip on that blog. According to the Times, you now owe YouTube $200 for the privilege of having not one but two of your shows held up for mockery.

Maybe there's nothing wrong with that. Exposure is exposure; some of the people who watch the clip will end up watching the shows, whatever the blogger says about them. But historically, advertisers have used the lever of context—"You can insult us, but we're not going to pay you to insult us"—to elicit favorable coverage. Now they'll lose some of that message control.