Video Sharing

I spent some time today looking at some videos on U tube. These user created videos can be fun and fascinating, sometimes both or neither. Some of them are of good quality and some very poor quality, but it certainly seems as if they are here to stay. I found several today quite entertaining. I recently attended a workshop where the presenters interspersed some of these user created videos into the presentation. I must say the presentation was enlivened by the use of the videos. People are even doing business and advertising on U tube, just like Facebook and MySpace. I mentioned this to my son-in-law for his new business organicallyhappy.com and he said he had already been working on a way to get a video on UTube.
I do see that problems could develop with copyright issues, and I think that could be an ongoing situation for some time to come. What is actually in the public domain and what can be shared legally and illegally will continue to be an issue. Will anyone who wants to use someone else's video posting need to contact them for permission? Would they be willing to? I think not. Who knows if you could even find the the creator. Who would police this? Things happen so fast on the internet, with downloading, uploading, rss feeding, twittering, etc, that it becomes so easy to use someone else's stuff.
For the library's use, just how professional would the video need to be? Could the library promote events or use video taken at an event and put on the library's website? Will it draw patrons to the library? I would think, if done well, these user created videos could be a very popular link on the website. I think it would be great publicity to showcase a wonderful program before and after it has taken place, and hope that patrons will try not to miss the next event.
We as librarians need to aware of such new technologies to be able to answer patron questions about these. The better informed we are, the better the service we can provide. For those librarians who don't 'live' and 'play'on the internet, awareness of these technologies is essential.