Consumer-generated media? Not so fast.

From South Korea comes news of a new kind of corporate mudslinging. Last week, a 15-second video posted to YouTube showed a woman snapping Samsung's prized Ultra Edition mobile phone in half. The video quickly became one of YouTube's most watched, spawning the expected chain of outraged comments.

Grassroots consumer activism, right? Not so fast. As The Korea Times reported:

Youtube.com, a popular video blog service in the United States, said Motorola is responsible for the video though it didn't intended to circulate it.

The 15-second video clip entitled ``Samsung handset, easy to break at one try!'' has been circulating on the Internet since last week. It shows a smiling young woman snapping Samsung's 6.9-milimeter-thick mobile phone in two.

``The video has been removed at the request of the copyright owner Motorola, because its content was used without permission,'' the Web site said.

Samsung is furious about the video, claiming it was designed to damage its reputation.

A shining example of the power of Web 2.0, YouTube brings the power to the people, giving them the tools and means to contribute and discover content that would other wise go unnoticed.

But with the Internet awash with new types of content, is content still king?

In the words of pundit Jeff Jarvis, spoken at this week's VON conference, trust is king.

Links:
Watch the clip in question (the movie's not on YouTube, so click this link to download it)
Jeff Jarvis' blog