Call it this century’s version of payola. Sprint Nextel Corp (NYSE: S). is asking young filmmakers – a.k.a. YouTube superstars – to “sell out” by dropping an image of the Samsung Instinct into their short video for $20 to the first 1,000 lucky chosen ones and $10,000 for a grand prize.

At a site dedicated to the device, Sprint plugs the new contest in a hilarious short video that’s worth a visit alone. “Shamelessly plug the Samsung Instinct into your home movie … this summer, turn your loved ones into cash with blatant product placement,” a deep-voiced male narrator calls out to viewers. “It’s the greatest product placement home movie of all time.”

As one Sprint spokesman told MocoNews: “We’re paying people to hawk our Samsung Instinct phones in their YouTube videos.”

All you need is a short video submitted to YouTube through Sprint’s site. You don’t need to own the phone or get your hands on one for the video either; Sprint’s site features a tool that allows entrants to embed an image directly into their video (including a hand model) with no editing required.

Sprint’s video clip about the contest – a brainchild of its ad agency, Goodby—includes home movies of a baby crawling, cats fighting, a women giving birth and a puppy, so it’s clear the company’s looking for anything and everything.

There’s a long list of fine print, but here’s what’s most important on the creative side:
-- No more than four people in the video
-- English only
-- Video must be 30 seconds to 120 seconds in length
-- No personally identifiable information (last name, address, place of work, etc.)
-- No other products, copyrighted material or trademarks may be included in the submission.

Rafat adds: I can’t decide whether this is hellishly smart or pathetic....anyone?