But Disney has a big opportunity here as well. Like everyone is saying, this is basically yet another experiment being performed on the road to best practices in digital content distribution. No one's figured it out yet, and maybe no one ever will. That won't stop execs from trying, though (neither should it).

What I'd like to see is this: Disney should quickly move to porting full-length episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, etc., over to YouTube. But Disney should add some species of "extras" to the shows that differentiate them from any other release, whether it be on DVD, iTunes, etc.

I've always been a proponent of the idea that every ancillary release of a particular piece of content should have its own unique fingerprint. If I see a Disney movie on TNT, perhaps there could be some bonus feature attached to it that would be different from the movie as seen on the Internet or as viewed on physical media. This might encourage the eyeballs to check out YouTube to see what all the fuss is about with its latest partnership.

I think when it comes to the question of who benefits the most, I'd have to say Google might have the edge here. Scoring the Disney brand for the renegade platform is no small coup in my opinion. It tells the media world that one of the toughest negotiators out there might actually see a future for a site that still has a reputation of being difficult to monetize (a deserved reputation, as I mentioned previously), and whose claim to fame remains centered on goofballs putting up three-minute clips of themselves performing forgettable cable-access quality material (not that there's anything wrong with that!).

Plus, remember that Disney is still negotiating to place its content on Hulu, which is a video platform featuring content from News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal. YouTube wouldn't want Hulu to be the only one of the two to sign a deal with the Mouse, right?

I guess we're still in the early stages of digital distribution. I expect the YouTube and Hulu platforms to simply be stepping stones in the evolutionary mechanism of the process. But I think both Google and Disney need to aggressively figure out how to make money off online content on behalf of their respective shareholders. Both content and content platforms can be expensive propositions. Unless Wall Street institutions see better use of these assets, they may not be inclined to buy for the long term.

Disclosure: I own Disney, GE; positions can change without notice.