The in-house produced proprietary content is in the form of videos, shows, photo stories, and Movie content, amongst others.

While Facebook has copyright claims to the proprietary content and design of the website, it does not own a copyright in its users' profile data.

Not all broadband providers are making bets on proprietary content.

"Certain types of proprietary content are being displaced by freely sharable content," he said.

In addition to serving the school and library communities, Gale also licenses its proprietary content for integration within Web-based information services.

Yahoo didn't have any proprietary content, and they have 100 million users who go to their Web site every month.

Of course, that includes proprietary content, which remains something of a fuzzy concept among teenagers.

"As you move into an advertiser-supported Internet, 'your' site needs to have more proprietary content than 'mine.' "

So far, the library of proprietary content from 20th Century Fox films and television shows is limited because the service is so new.

Traditional encyclopedias are written by a number of employed text writers, usually people with an academic degree, and distributed as proprietary content.