To me it is one of the most intruiging things about the Internet: how companies create money by spending it. The more you spend the more you get in the end – or so it seems. It worked during the Internet hype (1995-2001) and it’s obviously how it still works now in the post-bubble era: Google announced yesterday that it will buy YouTube for $1.65 Billion in stock. You can take that to the bank!
I can understand the idea behind Google buying YouTube: it is far more popular than their own Google Video. But there is one thing that has been haunting YouTube since the beginning: the extraordinary amount of copyrighted material on there, ranging from clips from movies, to complete music videos. Until now YouTube has not taken any action itself to do anything about that, except the occasional take-down when companies would specifically complain about a video.
Even though users are responsible for their own videos according to YouTube’s terms of use, I think there is a potential for huge lawsuits there. So the question is: will Google get hammered down by the MPAA, RIAA, and Google shareholders? And if that happens, will that slow down the popularity of video sharing? I would say: “Let the lawsuits begin”
Message from two happy billionaires (I would be)