ProSiebenSat1 Media, Germany's largest commercial television company, has bought a 30 per cent stake in MyVideo, a German video website that models itself on the fast-growing YouTube of the US.

The Munich-based group is the first German broadcaster to meet the challenge of "community" sites by joining rather than fighting new rivals that offer advertisers new lures to reach the masses.

RTL Television, ProSieben's German rival and a part of media giant Bertelsmann, last month launched the site Clipfish.de, which boasts about one sixth the number of films of MyVideo's 60,000.

The Samwer brothers have shown a fortunate hand in importing innovations to Germany and then selling. They made their start with the sale of online auction house Alando.de to Ebay six years ago.

In 2004, they sold Jamba, a German online service selling ringtones for mobile phones, to VeriSign of the US.

German versions of US inventions have nonetheless often developed distinctive signatures - and MyVideo seems to be no different. Unlike its US cousin, the German web service is not coy about sex.

While YouTube offers a clean and healthy range of video categories from Arts to Video Games, MyVideo includes the categories Crazy and Erotica.