Viacom vs Youtube, and why I don't care that much...

Tim Goodman at the San Francisco Chronicle has written a great article, which I largely agree with, about why this lawsuit kinda doesn't matter.

He makes some excellent points regarding the fact that for us "little people" who provide content for these sites, we'll not see any compensation for our work. Google will find a way to make money off of YouTube, and Viacom will find a way to force Google to pay them for the privilege of showing clips of their shows.
That last point burns me up, as fans of these shows are pretty much using YouTube to freely ADVERTISE this media. Without the online fan community, I really don't believe that shows like 30 Rock and My Name is Earl (great though they may be) would have nearly the same viewership they do now.
It reminds me of the early days of Napster, where people were swapping songs like crazy, and album sales were rising. When Lars started suing people is around the same time as people stopped buying their music...