MySpace and Auditude have come up with a wizard wheeze they think will help TV people make a bomb out of pirated television show snippets on the Internet.

Auditude technology automatically identifies user-posted segments of shows, then weaves in advertising for copyright owners and tells viewers whose program they are watching. This means that instead of copyright holders chasing down television shows video, they can let Internet users be delivery channels complete with advertising.

MySpace Marketing President, Jeff Berman, said that under the cunning plan everyone wins. Auditude has spent four years "fingerprinting" television broadcasts to enable its software to instantly identify online snippets of shows. The scheme has the backing of  Warner Brothers  and others are expected to follow. 

MySpace is Auditude's first Internet partner, but more are expected to follow suit.