Google, YouTube: The Ghost Of Copyright Returns

It's all coming back to haunt Google and YouTube.

When the Mountain View search engine kingpin gobbled up YouTube, Inc. for $1.65 billion in October last year, the acquisition shook up the dotcom landscape.

It was the most expensive takeover in Google's eight-year history.

At that time, industry pundits were wondering how Google would deal with copyright issues in view of the "freeloading" of videos on YouTube.

Now, entertainment giant Viacom Media is suing both Google and YouTube for $1 billion for illegally using its TV programs.

The BBC News website reported that the lawsuit seeks more than $1 billion in damages and an injunction to prevent copyright infringement.

Last month, Viacom, which owns cable networks MTV and Nickelodeon, told YouTube to remove 100,000 "unauthorised" clips.

Read more...

Related topics:
Google's copyright nightmare
Viacom Sues Google, YouTube
YouTube removing Viacom TV shows

YouTube and the Cost of Popularity

The BBC News reports:

"A firm selling machinery to make tubes and pipes has sued internet sensation YouTube - saying the video-sharing site causes havoc at its own business. Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment said its own website - Utube.com - had to be moved five times after millions of inadvertent hits made it crash.

The Ohio-based firm has now filed a claim in the US district court."

> To read more....

Serving Up A Google Hurricane

Looks like Google is never out of the news. After the celebrated marriage with YouTube, the Mountain View kingpin is believed to be cooking up something big again.

The rumour mill is getting the adrenalin flowing. So, what's cooking?

According to WebProNews, there's gonna be a hurricane (Not Katrina, again) swirling right up by Monday. They got wind of this from DM News associate editor Giselle Abramovich.

According to her, Google is set for a corporate restructuring and are about to launch an Adsense for Audio service.

For those who envisage the coming of the online video age, this has got to be huge. And that's the main reason for the sensational Google/YouTube marriage.

Think of this as a recipe that includes podcasts, streaming media like YouTube, MP3 player, radio and TV plus a few other new media technologies...and throw in Adsense for Audio for good measure, what do you get?

Voila, a Google Goodie Dish, of course!

To read more...

> WebProNews: Google to restructure

> Blog.dmnews.com: Rumour has it...

Bubbling Dotcom Bubbles

Your snoopy wiredhound was caught napping while Google Inc. was gobbling up YouTube Inc. for a cool USD1.65 billion.

This is the most expensive acquisition in Google's eight-year history and it really shook up the dotcom landscape.

After Monday's coup by the Internet's leading search engine company, some are rubbing their eyes and wondering whether this is the beginning or the end of the dotcom craze.

Certainly it brings back memories of the dotcom boom in the late 1990s. So has the dotcom boom come back with a vengeance?

If we take Google CEO Eric Schmidt's word for it when he told investors that YouTube would be "one of many investments" the company plans to make in the video field, then be prepared for more splashy news in the near future.

Last year, Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace - a hot social networking site popular with teenagers - for USD580 million and got tongues wagging about the acquisition.

The way things are moving, online video seems to be the next big thing 'cause there's a huge market out there for the taking.

As YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen had proven, their video site turned out to be a cultural phenomenon. It appeals to the young.

Born August last year in Hurley's garage, YouTube captured about 2.8 million users a month but today its audience had shot up to 72 million users, according to a BBC news report.

Is this the theoretical "Long Tail" effect that Chris Anderson wrote about in his book whereby the future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream?

Here's a quote from YouTube's CEO Hurley reported in the San Francisco Chronicle:

"We're in the middle of a shift in digital media entertainment. Users are now in control of what they want to watch and when they want to watch it. They decide what rises to the top, what's entertaining."

Here's a hypothetical USD1.65 billion question to Yahoo and MicroSoft: What're you gonna do about this Google-gobbling? You ain't gonna take this lying down?