A Michael Liedtke article appearing today via AP highlights YouTube founders Chad Hurley’s and Steve Chen’s lack of concern about their legal woes and potential competitors (Joost and the currently unnamed Murdoch venture).

Hey, guys: If Viacom sues you for $1 billion and you are not worried, then you need to be committed. More surprising than their ambivalence, however, is that they drank their own Kool Aid.

Sure, they’re negotiating revenue sharing with big-hit producers, but apparently they don’t really need it:

“… Hurley believes YouTube would thrive even if Hollywood studios and music labels had all of their material removed from the site.”

In his own words:

“What our users want to watch is themselves,” he said. “They don’t want to watch professionally produced content. There are so many people with cameras that have the opportunity to create their own content and so many more people with editing tools to tell their stories, we feel this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Chad, are you kidding me?

Sure, there are die hards who subscribe to the video blogs and enjoy other user-generated content, but if Hollywood, broadcast/cable tv, and recording studios had their content removed, your mainstream audience would disappear.

I don’t go to YouTube to watch home made videos about how Pele is the greatest soccer player. I go to YouTube to find old footage of Pele (probably Viacom licensed, by the way). Afterward, I might watch the vid some kid from Omaha posted about the king of the beautiful game

The mainstream wants professionally produced content. Sure, they enjoy user-generated efforts, but believe me, they find that after watching the slick stuff they were looking for in the first place. I don’t think it works the other way nearly as often.