You can fight ‘em or you can join ‘em – it seems YouTube is as much a “joiner” as a “divider” when it comes to the institutions of American pop culture.

Case 1: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has thrown down the glove and insisted the service remove all “unathorized clips” of the movie industry’s group hug … er, Oscar telecast. YouTube has complied with the request – but not before over 250,000 viewers got a chance to watch Will Ferrell sing with Jack Black and John C. Reilly (along with other video snippets).

Still have to satisfy that Oscar-driven anxiety? You can see select video clips on Oscar.com – although none of the shows musical numbers nor host Ellen DeGeneres’ monolog are available.

Case 2: CBS, on the other hand, is planning on leveraging the power of YT to generate additional madness on top of the traditional March Madness that is the NCAA finals. According to an article in today’s NY Times, the CSTV Networks division of CBS is starting a campaign today entitled “Are you fan enough?” that invites viewers to upload do-it-yourself video clips.

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