Quincy Smith comes right out and says it at the Web 2.0 Summit this week. From Eric Savitz blog on Barron’s Online…

Quincy Smith, President, CBS Interactive, said on a panel at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week that he does not see the Internet as cannibalizing broadcast television. He contends that allowing clips to sit on the Internet actually drives more people to watch shows live or on demand or on their DVRs. His example is a recent YouTube clip of David Letterman interviewing Paris Hilton, which was recently one of the most viewed things on the site. Rather than take it down, he says, the company embraced it as driving more viewership of the show.

We agree whole heartedly and Quincy’s point is essential to the business model of our new start up we begin to raise money for in the next few weeks.

It’s a Fox News slogan but it applies to last night’s episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher” where Maher lost control of his audience and the lost his cool. Don’t get me wrong, I like Bill Maher most of the time – he is funny and insightful and I applaud HBO for airing the incident in their west coast feeds (it sure will get the show a ton of press). Maher’s decision to tape in front of a live audience, just like “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” adds a dynamic element to these hybrid news/comedy/analysis shows. Comedy Central producers crank up the audience audio for the openings of both Stewart and Colbert. Live TV audiences are used to create a connection with the at-home TV viewer of adoration and approval of the presenter and to build excitement. As Maher found out last night, it doesn’t always come without a price.

Fair use copyright law allows for brief samples of copyrighted works to be used for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research. Yesterday, I wrote the talented and smart Larry Lessig to ask him a fair use question and he quickly and kindly wrote me back this morning. The project I am researching involves content analysis of television network news coverage. To briefly summarize his thoughts, Larry felt the scenario I proposed should be protected by fair use but that most of the industry does not. Multi-source journalism benefits the industry and the user.

It would greatly benefit copyright holders to loosen their tight grip on their copyrights. Yahoo’s Jumpcut could allow users to create mashups using a list of copyrighted Top 40 songs that artists have made freely available to Jumpcut users – the artist will greatly benefit from the user-generated and user-distributed content. Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” cut to footage of hurricane Rita’s terrible damage to New Orleans is a perfect example. It’s been two years and I still see Karmagrrrl’s video when I hear the song. And yes, I bought the song. Sampling sells.