Sure, blockquoting an article is an easy means to queue up some blog content, but posting clips from last night's The Daily Show, The O'Reilly Factor, or this morning's Today is the real currency of this medium that refuses to die. So when RedLasso arrived — offering free, embeddable bite-size clips of all comment-worthy content — a blogger's wet dream was realized. Then networks like NBC and Fox had to sue the service out of house and home on charges of copyright infringement, leaving underpaid web writers forced to scour TV network websites one at a time to see if there were any gaffes worth highlighting. Now, an alternative.

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Well, it's been a good ride. After months and months of being bombarded with reasons to feel embarrassed for Sherri Shepherd, Today and Good Morning America concert performances, and an endless loop of Anderson Cooper, TV video clipping service RedLasso says it's shutting down. It just might have something to do with the little lawsuit that NBC and Fox just filed against it for copyright infringement. So there will be more more daily embed links to the most recent stink filling up our airwaves … unless you're a paying customer: business clients will still get their clips. (Doesn't that put RedLasso at more risk of claims that it's profiting from others copyrighted works?) And all the videos that have been posted thus far? They should soon be made unavailable. Which might come as a surprise to those working at RedLasso, who, not four hours ago, wanted to let us know about Feist performing on GMA.

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Following up May's cease and desist letter, NBC Universal, Fox News, and the Fox Television Stations today will jointly file suit against Redlasso, the defiant clipping service all of them refuse to credit with making tons of their programming more popular than they ever could. (NB: CBS, originally involved in the case, doesn't seem to be attached to the lawsuit.) [NYO]

Last month, the big broadcast networks NBC, CBS, and Fox filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against RedLasso, the video clipping service used by many blogs to post footage of Dancing With the Stars contestants falling down and Fox News anchors displaying their whiteness. While RedLasso argued they wanted to work with television content producers to create a good-for-everyone revenue-sharing model, the networks took a different approach: stop stealing our content and building your business on it.

Funny, then, that the same companies responsible for trying to kill RedLasso are using the very service on their own websites.

RedLasso, the television clipping service popular with bloggers, intends to keep cutting video from the networks and making it available online, despite a lawsuit from Big Media. Reads the company's statement, in part: "Clip usage by bloggers is an exercise of first amendment rights to provide social commentary on newsworthy events." Oh, and also: RedLasso would love to set up a revenue sharing arrangement with the networks. [B&C]

RedLasso, the sometimes buggy but generally reliable embeddable video service, was handed a copyright infringement lawsuit this week by the major TV networks, who want it shut down for distributing their content.

With a huge 24 million unique visitors a month, it's clear RedLasso serves a purpose. But so did Napster, and one industry in particular wasn't pleased with its reach.

So what's RedLasso to do? The company still hasn't responded formally to the lawsuit, but they have said one thing: We've got the blogs on our side!

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You know all those lovely clips of The Daily Show, Good Morning America, Dancing With the Stars, and American Idol that blogs have been able to publish with growing ease and selection in the past few months?

The joyride may be over.

In a dust up we kind of expected to see, and are surprised took so long to form, RedLasso (the company behind the embeddable clips) is being taken to court by NBC, CBS, and Fox for copyright violations. [Reuters] They're not so happy that their programming has been reduced to bite-size segments for anyone to watch gratis.

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Despite the clipping service's buggy (and browser-crashing) player, RedLasso is always on the ball. Which is why, after TiVo-speeding our way through last night's American Idol and catching Paula Abdul mistake a single performance by Jason Castro for, um, two performances, we knew we could check our inbox within moments and the clip would be there. Indeed, it was.

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