Why create content when you can build a profitable Internet business by redistributing the creative wealth of others? It worked for Google, and now it’s working for the video portal Hulu, too.

The company, whose revenue exceeded $100 million last year, makes money by corralling entertainment content into one place and selling ads around it. But as BNET noted earlier this month, while the business model is great for Hulu’s bottom line, it doesn’t pay so well for the studios that spend millions of dollars to create the content.

The arrangement may work in the short term, but the future for the studios looks as potentially bleak as the present is for news organizations:

The argument, of course, is that the producers don’t need to cover the costs off a Hulu because they already get money from the original broadcasts. But that depends on the networks essentially underwriting so a Hulu can have television at a cheaper price. What happens when enough viewers move to the Internet to get video with ad rates a small fraction of what television gets? There’s no more money to pay for new programming.

It’s the same problem news organizations face. When there’s not enough money, either quality suffers or people get out of the business because it can’t support them. It’s why Viacom (VNV) took “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” off Hulu — having new and popular programming there kept many users away from the Comedy Central site, and the direct ad revenue it might have seen. Expect more of the same as all the people at the Internet table look around when the bill comes, wondering who will pick up the tab.

Information may want to be free in the digital era, but for content to be king, someone has to pay for it.