The art of fan-made fantasy trailers on the Internet has come a long way. The latest -- this appeal to cast Nathan Fillion in the upcoming Green Lantern film -- could fool a lot of people. For the record, though, this is not an official trailer for the film. 

The L.A. Times notes a remarkable achievement that everyone in Hollywood who thinks they know what's popular needs to acknowledge: Fred, the high pitched and super annoying (in a lovable sort of way) 6 year-old persona of 15 year-old Nebraska teen Lukas Cruikshank has surpasssed one million subscribers on YouTube.

He's not only the first YouTube channel to hit that amazing milestone, he's the first to do it by far. Only one other channel has over 900,000 subs and four have more than 500,000. In fact, of the 20 most subscribed channels on YouTube, only three come from traditional entertainment companies of any kind: Universal Music, the Jonas Brothers, and "Family Guy" creator Set MacFarlane.

Fred's also the #1 most viewed channel of all time in the "comedians" category. Though UMG, Sony Music, CBS, and a few other big media companies can take solace that they're ahead of Fred on the all-time videos viewed list. Then again, Fred only has 36 videos. CBS has 17,197. UMG has 9,451. The Jonas Brothers have 81. On a views per video basis, Fred is no. 2, behind only the slightly better known hip hop artist Chris Brown.

Regardless of whether you like Fred or not, his success gives new credence to William Goldman's classic line that "nobody knows anything." I highly doubt anyone out there could have predicted a hyperactive 15 year-old who makes his voice sound like its on helium would become the all-time breakout star in online video. If it's your job to developed properties Americans will want to watch on TV or the big screen -- or even worse, the Internet -- watch Lucas/Fred celebrate his achievement and try to decide whether you want to laugh, cry, or blow your brains out.

Since it pioneered the business in 2006, ABC/Disney's approach to online streaming has been simple: Our way or the highway.

While its rival networks have distributed their shows to dozens of different websites -- CBS on its own, NBC and Fox via Hulu -- ABC has signed only one, with AOL, and otherwise attempted to draw viewers to ABC.com, where it can control the experience. "We're focused on the economics, not just ubiquitous distribution," digital media chief Albert Cheng said a year and a half ago.

Things have changed. Apparently the company behind "Lost" and "Grey's Anatomy" and "Hannah Montana" is ready to sign a major online partnership and is choosing between Hulu and YouTube.

Late last week came news from numerous outlets, including the L.A. Times, that Disney was negotiating with NBC and Fox to buy a stake in Hulu. That would put its shows on the fast growing site and most likely, via its distribution deals, partners like Yahoo and MSN.

But today the plot thickened. PaidContent reports that Disney may go with YouTube instead. The two companies are already close to a partnership to put clips from the conglomerate's TV shows on Google's massive video service (with a generous revenue share, no doubt). But they're also reportedly in more tentative talks about putting full episodes on YouTube, thus making Google the ABC's main video partner and precluding an investment in Hulu.

Whichever way Disney ends up going, it looks like it won't be going solo on the Web anymore.

YouTube may be the world's biggest video site, but all the action around it recently has to do with music.

In the UK, Google is blocking access to thousands of musicvideos on YouTube after it failed to reach an agreement with the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the country's main royalty collector. As PaidContent is reporting, the back-and-forth is full of the typical accusations. Google says it was being asked to pay "many, many times more for our licence than before," and would "lose significant amounts of money with every playback."

An MCPS-PRS rep, of course, sees things 180 degrees differently, stating, "Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing."

In most of these types of licensing disputes, the reality is that the licensor (MCPS-PRS) things they deserve more because their content is being viewed so much more than in the past, while the licensee hasn't figured out how to monetize that content enough in order to justify the higher royalties. And so consumers lose out on the content.

But what's particularly interesting is how big a deal music is becoming on YouTube. This UK royalty fight isn't the only evidence this week. CNET has a profile of Muziic, a new application that promises free access to tracks from "the world's largest music database -- YouTube." It simply searches the billions of videos on YouTube to find ones that use the tracks the person is searching for, and then plays the video in a tiny window (in order to satisfy Google's terms of use), but focuses on the music.

Though it hasn't been shut down yet, Google seems none too happy, telling CNET, "On a preliminary review... it appears that the site violates our API terms of use." Google, of course, can't be happy it will be forced to pay royalties for videos it can't really monetize. And while they haven't yet responded, you can bet your life savings that the labels will want Muziic shut down, since it's essentially an on-demand listening service like Rhapsody for which they're used to getting different, higher royalties than YouTube.

And of course all this is happening against the backdrop of labels talking to YouTube about setting up a Hulu-like site focused on music videos.

Remember when MTV revolutionized the traditional music biz (please tell me you do)? Looks like YouTube might be doing the same to digital music.

Just a year ago plenty of people (including me) would have said that the idea of a YouTube competitors that specializes in TV is silly. Why not put everything online video viewers want in one destination?

Hulu has proved us naysayers wrong. It turns out that a streamlined interface focused on television works great. The quality is better and it's easy to find what we want. It also works well for advertisers because they know their messages are going up against content with which they are familiar, unlike the viral video sites.

As is so often its wont, the music industry has a message: Us too! According to CNET News (amongst others), Universal Music is in talks with Google to create a YouTube offshoot, tentatively titled Vevo, focused exclusively on music videos and related content. The other major labels, all of which are currently in talks with Google about renegotiating their deals to distribute content in YouTube, have been approached about joining.

The music biz, of course, is continuing to struggle with declining CD sales and looking for new revenue sources, from downloads to ringtones to video games. Music videos, once produced purely for promotion, are now viewed as a primary option. They're already generating millions for the labels on sites like Yahoo and YouTube where they're streamed.

But a Hulu-like site could do much better, giving music videos a brand of their own, controlled by the labels themselves (in part), and designed to attract the highest paying advertisers.

It could also be a big win for Google, which missed out on the action with Hulu. It's still struggling to rejigger YouTube, and make deals with Hollywood content partners, to make up for the loss.

Do consumers want a site like that, though? The advantage for Hulu is that people often miss an episode of TV, or hear friends talking about it, and want to find it. That's not true of music videos. Since MTV no longer shows them, Vevo would become the primary home for music videos, not a secondary one as Hulu is for TV.

Do consumers care enough about music videos to justify that kind of investment? Given that Universal Music has the number one most viewed video channel of all time on YouTube, it's a decent bet.

Just how mainstream is Netflix? One of the oldest school of old-school directors is using it to promote his newest movie.

Francis Ford Coppola is now online with his first viral short promoting "Tetro," his upcoming film starring Vincent Gallo. It's no sophisticated filmmaking from a great director or an ironic take on the quality of most videos on YouTube. It's just Francis Ford Coppola, holding a camcorder in one hand, walking alone through his office in the Napa Valley showing us his home office where he works, which basically consists of several laptops and some blueprints (no idea why).

FFC's agenda seems quite simple. He's just saying "hi" and telling us a little bit about his upcoming movie.

The video is apparently meant to serve as an introduction to the new website for "Tetro," which just launched here. As of this writing, only 519 people have watched Francis Ford Coppola's first directorial effort since 2007's "Youth Without Youth." Here's hoping the Internets can show a little more respect:

(via LA Times tech blog)