I never saw that famously viral “Lazy Sunday” bit from Saturday Night Live on an actual television. I saw it about a million times on YouTube or when friends emailed it to me. In a way, I cheated the system. I got the entertainment without having to endure any commercial or network promotion. Somewhere, a sponsor is weeping.

In the editor’s note of the April/May issue of Streaming Media magazine, Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen covers the ongoing debate about protecting intellectual property in the days of user-uploaded video sites like YouTube and Joost.

I’m down with the point he argues, but he cops out before tackling the biggest piece: monetization. He writes:

Heaven knows that the ability to catch clips from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report only helped boost the overall market awareness of those Viacom properties. And “Lazy Sunday,” the Saturday Night Live clip that made YouTube a household name in late 2005, brought more publicity to that show than NBC could have ever dreamed of.

True points, both. Then he wraps up with:

But while up-and-coming filmmakers and musicians have seized the web as a means of promoting their art, er, intellectual property, so should the major entertainment players recognize that, like terrestrial radio, the web serves as a way for fans to find new favorites they’ll then invest in either directly with their wallets or indirectly by turning to the “official” as-supported sources.

I think he stumbles here:

1. There’s a huge difference between up-and-comers and major players. Up-and-comers need exposure, and lots of it, so they give away their content on purpose. It’s like handing out demo CDs. So that comparison is off base.

2. The issue with user-upload sites goes directly against Schumacher-Rasmussen’s suggestion. If the major players could control where their content went and how folks access it (like streaming a terrestrial radio station via a radio station website), then they wouldn’t be crying. Control of the content means you can get a viewer to either pay money or watch an ad, something that earns money. The way in which the major players make money may have to change, but they do still need to make money in order to continue making programs.

User-upload sites take away control of the content, and as a result take away the ability to make money, in either the advertising or pay-per-view models. You may be a big fan of free access to content, but I look at it by comparing programs on HBO to the cable access programs produced by high school kids. You pay for one, you don’t for the other.

At the end of the day, which would you prefer to watch?