Sunday, December 03, 2006

The Google/YouTube Come-On

Another timely BusinessWeek reality check.  Google is wise to use its financial leverage to make this sort of deal ASAP.

Google (GOOG ) and YouTube are dangling nine-figure sums in front of major programming and network players—that is, the Time Warners, News Corp (NWS )s, and NBC Universals of the world. Google calls these monies licensing fees, according to executives who've been involved in the discussions. But some of them characterize the subtext like this: Don't sue us over copyrights. Take this (substantial) payment, and trust us to figure out how we'll all make serious money once we get advertising and revenue sharing worked out.

Source: The Google/YouTube Come-On

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