As posted at the beginning of November the legal disputes (in terms of copyright issues) and the opportunities to generate “Web 2.0-returns” will proceed.

According to the news, Universal Music started to accuse “Myspace” for violating its copyrights. In the core of this matter Universal Music argues that “Myspace” would enable Internet users to distribute videos illegally since “Myspace” supports re-formatting.

Wow. According to a recent study (“Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market” in Science, volume 311, February 2006, p. 854 -856) social factors have a huge impact on the demand. The outcomes of this study in brief: (a) Social factors have an impact on individual decisions (a popular song was rated better). (b) When users can influence each other, it is much harder to predict, which product is the most successful. (c) The grace of participants focuses unequally on the most popular products, hence it was harder to predict the success of a certain product.

Community users mutually influence each other, hence they are able to push products including music, videos etc. Therefore I would recommend each copyright holder to rethink legal disputes and to employ web 2.0 and community options for its core business.