YouTube and Deep Focus, a digital agency to film studios, have agreed to promote movie trailers on the popular video portal, ClickZ reports. The first trailer to be so promoted - Dimension Films' "Scary Movie 4" - has been viewed nearly half a million times in less than four days, more than on Yahoo, where it's been offered for two weeks or so. For now, no money has exchanged hands; instead, YouTube benefits because it is seen as copyright-friendly, and the studio is seen as working with rather than fighting a peer-to-peer site.

Users will be able to embed the trailers in their blogs, MySpace profiles and other webpages, and the studios will be able to measure how many times the trailer has been viewed no matter where it resides, because YouTube provides the number for all to see.

YouTube had some nine million unique visitors in February, second only to MSN Video's 9.3 million, according to Nielsen/NetRatings numbers.