WANT to watch a trailer for the Simpsons movie due out this summer? Simple. Log on to YouTube, tap “Simpsons” into the search bar, and take your pick.

Several YouTube users have uploaded copies of the trailer on to the site over recent weeks. They are very popular — one has been watched 1.3m times. In a sly acknowledgment of the “unofficial” use of the clips, one of the posters has called himself “20thCentryFox” — the Simpsons film is being made by the 20thCenturyFox studio, part of the News Corporation media empire.

While Fox executives will probably be happy that advertisements for the film are being watched on YouTube, they may be less relaxed about the rest of the Simpsons content on the site.

There are 22,000 Simpsons-themed clips available, most of which are YouTube users’ own favourite scenes or compilations of Homer’s funniest moments. YouTube, bought by Google last year for $1.65 billion (£840m), also carries clips, and sometimes whole episodes, of South Park and other hit shows, as well as music videos, news items and sports events alongside videos made by its users.

This unsanctioned use of material has driven the media establishment into a frenzy as it puzzles over how to corral — and profit from — this tide of content being generated and shared by millions of internet users.

One media giant, Viacom, after having tried to negotiate with the video-sharing site, finally snapped a fortnight ago and sued YouTube for $1 billion for copyright infringement. YouTube says it does not infringe copyright because it removes clips if makers ask.

Last week two more of the world’s biggest media groups joined forces to take a different tack. News Corp, owner of Fox and the ultimate parent company of The Sunday Times, teamed up with NBC Universal, the media group majority-owned by General Electric, to launch its own video-sharing service.

There will be two strands. First, News and NBC will launch their own website to let viewers watch their material.

Second — and perhaps more importantly — the pair will license their content for use on a number of other video-sharing websites, including News Corp’s own MySpace, Microsoft’s MSN, TimeWarner’s AOL and Yahoo.

Videos will be provided free — although there may be charging for premium content — with the new company earning money through online advertising. The content will include — naturally — The Simpsons, as well as hit films like Borat and NBC shows, including Saturday Night Live.

Both the dedicated site and the four internet portals will feature a new online music shop to rival the dominant player in the sector, Apple’s iTunes.

The new service will be owned 50/50 by News and NBC. A name has yet to be announced. Peter Chernin, News Corp’s president and chief operating officer, will sit on the board, along with Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal’s chief executive.

The move ends a long period of head-scratching by executives on how to respond to the flood of pirated video online, and caps more than a year of talks in Hollywood on joint ventures.

Insiders say talks between NBC and News Corp began early last year, and included Viacom and CBS, which subsequently withdrew. CBS was thought to be wary of allowing the new venture sole rights to negotiate online distribution deals.

Other media groups have decided not to fight the trend, and make friends with YouTube. The licence-funded BBC is to create special “channels” on the vid-eo-sharing service dedicated to BBC-made videos.

NBC and News Corp, however, have decided to set up in competition. “This is a game-changer for internet video,” said Chernin. “We’ll have access to just about the entire US internet audience at launch.”

The internet portals — MSN, MySpace, AOL and Yahoo — are thought to account for about 96% of America’s internet users.

Media analysts and executives at first saw it as a direct challenge to YouTube — an attempt to siphon off that part of its membership by offering high-quality copyrighted material for free. But Chernin insisted the site was “not a YouTube killer”. He and Zucker had briefed Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, about the plan.

“We are, in fact, willing to talk to anybody who wants to distribute this, provided they meet our economic terms and obviously meet our copyright-protection terms,” Chernin said. YouTube said it “valued our relationships with NBC and Fox . . . and [would] look forward to working with them in future.”

Media commentators said News Corp and NBC were not necessarily on a war footing with Google and YouTube.

“I think this is less NBC and News versus Google in business and more NBC and News versus Viacom in philosophy,” said Jeff Jarvis of the influential American tech blog Buzzmachine.

“These guys, unlike Viacom, recognise the power — and the necessity — of the ‘recommendation engine’ — ie, you and me — as the new means of marketing and distribution. They’re trying to do that in a way that feels safer to them and that they can make money on . . . If they crack the monetisation, these guys will care [a bit] less about control.”

Richard Greenfield of Pali Capital, a New York-based stockbroker, said NBC and News Corp had not set out how they would deal with the popular homemade videos that made up a lot of YouTube’s content.

“It’s still not clear how user-generated contact is going to fit in and it’s still not clear that all these companies won’t do a deal with Google over time,” Greenfield said.

Other observers believe the media giants may have underestimated the social aspect that makes YouTube so popular. Eric Garland, chief executive of Big-Champagne, an entertainment market-research firm, told The Washington Post: “People go to YouTube to be seen and see other people — to be part of this community environment.”

NBC and News Corp are expected to try to lure others into the service. It is understood they are in talks with CBS, and hope to secure a deal with Sony.

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