It was just announced that Google has bought YouTube.
There are several things that make us nervous about this. The first being copyrights. Somehow YouTube has been able to let its users post virtually anything onto the site other than NBC's SNL's clips that the peacock deemed too good to just give away.
But if you are searching for classic music videos, or international parodies (pictured), then all you have to do is type it into the search box and voila.
For some reason YouTube never got sued or hassled or anything. But now that they are owned by Google, why wouldn't someone sick their lawyers on the Internet giant to get some of that paper while complaining copyright infringement?
The second thing we worry about is censorship. Lets say the video above became popular on the new YouTube, wouldn't Google, whose stock is ridiculously high, buckle under pressure from special interest groups to pull objectionable videos off their site?
While Google has been pretty awesome about who it lists on its search engines, their poor management of Google Video has lead to this billion dollar purchase. Let's hope Google has some brilliant lawyers and some visionary management types who can somehow leave YouTube alone while keeping those illegal vids on the air.
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Last sentence should read: Let's hope Google has some brilliant lawyers and some visionary management types who can somehow leave YouTube alone while keeping those vids on the air while compensating the copyright owners fairly.
(It's already happening, as Universal and Sony have already signed deals to share ad revenue with Youtube)
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2006-10-10 , 00:00 CEST (Brussels, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Stockholm).
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YouTube has been sucking for awhile already
YouTube's been sucking for a while already - slow, technical problems, out of synch sound, etc.
commence further suckage...