CNET is reporting that Google has started cutting revenue sharing deals with video content creators:

The search company has agreed to turn over most advertising revenue generated by the latest video from Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, creators of "The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment," according to Peter Chane, a senior product manager for Google Video.

In exchange, Grobe and Voltz, who saw their original offering--which shows a version of Vegas' Bellagio Fountains made of 101 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke and 523 Mentos--catch fire with video-sharing fans last summer, have agreed to let Google host their latest video, "The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment II."

Since Grobe and Voltz appear to have figured out how to draw an audience, it's time to start thinking about money. Assuming they don't want to host their vidoes themselves and sell ads against them, sites like Revver, and as of yesterday, MetaCafe, have provides revenue sharing opportunities for content. Brobe and Voltz chose Revver for their original video and have made more than $28,000 from it as of July. As of today, their top ranked Mentos experiment has been viewed 3,591,625 times on Revver.

While those are impressive numbers, it's pretty safe to assume that Grobe and Voltz would gain a larger audience for their work if it was published to a more popular video site like YouTube or Google Video. However, before today, there was no way for amateur video creators to monetize their content on either platform. In fact, YouTube's lax copyright control likely cost Grobe and Voltz a serious chunk of change and time dealing with pirated copies of their videos popping up on YouTube:

It took eight months for Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz to mastermind a now iconic Web video that shows them creating intricate fountains of soda by dropping 500 Mentos into 100 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke. The video became an instant hit after it was published in June on Revver, a service that shares ad revenue. Within days, bootlegs showed up on Google and YouTube. Voltz, a civil litigation lawyer, figured out the process for getting the videos removed. But as copies kept reappearing, Voltz learned that he had to keep contacting YouTube to take down each new version.

Putting the past behind them, Grobe and Voltz's move to Google likely makes good financial sense since Google has the largest network of online advertisers in the world, and now owns the most popular video publishing platform in the world. Putting those two together likely means more viewers at a higher CPM for future Mentos Experiments.