Los Angeles - Online media site MySpace is offering the owners of copyright material the chance to cash in on its online popularity.

MySpace said Monday that it had reached a deal with media giant Viacom whereby it will insert adds into the company's video excerpts that are screened on its site and pay the media giant a slice of the revenues.

Prior to this arrangement, the only procedure MySpace followed in dealing with copyrighted material was to try and identify it and block its appearance on the popular social networking site.

Under the new system such clips from outlets such as MTV Networks and Comedy Central like the Daily Show, The Colbert Report and The Hills will now earn money from their unauthorised online appearances.

MySpace will rely on the services of an outside company called Auditude, which will use its unique technology to identify copyrighted clips, insert appropriate ads targeted to the individual users watching the video and route a share of the ad revenue to the copyright owner.

"Up until now, if you uploaded a clip, you couldn't do it in a legitimate way. It either was blocked or taken down," said Jeff Berman, president of marketing and sales at MySpace. "This allows us to go from a world of no to a world of yes." (dpa)