There's an interesting battle that seems to be brewing between Photobucket and MySpace (Fox Interactive Media).  According to multiple reports popping up at Techmeme, MySpace began blocking access to Photobucket videos last night.  If you're a MySpace user, and have Photobucket videos on your profile, they will cease to appear the next time you update your profile.

As I said, there's a lot of chatter out there about this development already.  For the most part, folks aren't happy:

• A quick scan of the comments on Photobucket's blog post about the block are enough to illustrate just how irritated users are.
• TechCrunch speculates that MySpace may be intentionally trying to hurt Photobucket's business as it gets ready to sell.
• GigaOM looks at the influence MySpace has on companies that produce embeddable content.
• Deep Jive Interests says the ball is Fox's court.
• And Robert Scoble reminds us all that the best way to avoid this kind of situation is to host your own content.

Not surprisingly, Photobucket is pretty miffed by the whole situation.  One of the things that makes their product so attractive for a lot of users is the fact that their content is embeddable just about anywhere.  So when MySpace, the largest social network on the globe, cuts them off… it hurts.

But I don't think MySpace really cares that it has just irritated 40 million Photobucket users.

From a PR perspective, this is bad.  The public outcry is already mounting.  Photobucket is enticing users to contact MySpace and let them know what they think about it.  Some say a MySpace with pressure from users will cave.  And others are saying that MySpace has made a huge mistake and will lose millions of users because of this.

That's very, very doubtful.

While it might not be the best PR move, MySpace can't really be blamed for taking this move.  They want people to use their services.  They want their users locked in and hooked.  But here's the thing about MySpace:  photos, videos, and music are nice and all… but that's not why people use social networking sites like MySpace.

They use those sites to communicate with people.

Back in the days before MySpace was holding presidential primaries and ruling the world, customization wasn't that rampant.  Most folks had the plain, standard MySpace layouts and embedded video wasn't common.  MySpace built its user base around connecting people.  First and foremost… that's what MySpace is about.

The other stuff is just fluff.

And now that people are all linked up, connected, and immersed in the MySpace world, they're not going to leave over a few videos.  Sorry, Photobucket.  I feel for your plight… I really do.  But unless MySpace feels some compelling business reason to do so, they're not going to undo any decision just because it irks people.  If they responded to customer pressure, they'd have created a more stable system in general (MySpace is quite possibly the buggiest, least reliable website I've ever dealt with).

If you've got 500 MySpace friends you're not going to leave them all behind because your video slide show of a drunken frat party is suddenly gone.  You'll gripe and moan and possibly contact MySpace.  But you won't leave all of those people behind.  And MySpace knows this.  It was built from day one to hook people and lock them in.

So what's the moral behind all of this?  It's simple:  if you build your business on the back of other services, be ready when that service shakes you off.  Make sure your product is robust enough to survive on its own (which I think Photobuckets is, by the way).  And don't base your entire business model on the good graces of another company.

They say "all is fair in true love and war."  Business, my friends, is almost always war.  Don't be caught off guard.