According to RedHerring, Google CEO Eric Schmidt faced some tough questions about one of our popular postings recently:

Mr. Schmidt, however, denied that Google set aside a huge amount of hush money to be paid to media companies, which create a big chunk of the content uploaded to video hosting sites, to look the other way when copyrighted material is illegally downloaded to YouTube, which hosts videos that are viewed 100 million times daily. But Mr. Schmidt said Google is negotiating with the big entertainment companies over thorny copyright infringement issues, but solutions aren’t simple. “We’ve talked to everybody,” Mr. Schmidt said. “All the [media] companies have complicated rights management systems.”

Does it really matter if there is a “hush” money fund if suddenly all the media companies are willing to “negotiate”? In the end the effect is the same, copyright infringement can flourish on YouTube while it is crushed on smaller competitors. Oh well. 

According to a WSJ email alert:

Verizon is in advanced talks with YouTube to bring the popular Web site’s videos to cellphones and television sets, in what would be a landmark link-up between telecom and Internet video.

If you thought bringing YouTube to Comcast posed a problem to your TV remote we can’t even begin to imagine navigating on your cell phone.  On the other hand, most YouTube content is perfect for the 2 inch screen on your mobile. Too bad none of us here at BBB use Verizon.

Isn’t it amazing how wireless carriers still don’t get that the open nature of the internet is what makes it so popular?

Marketwatch reports on what is the logical conclusion to user-generated content:

Comcast Corp., the Philadelphia cable-TV and Internet provider, is considering the prospect of sending user-generated content—including home videos run over YouTube Inc. and Revver Inc.—across its video-on-demand service, The Wall Street Journal Online reported. It has held talks with some of the largest Net-video companies, including YouTube, which has agreed to be acquired by Google Inc., the Journal reported.

Bridging the gap between the computer desktop and the television in the living room seems to be the obvious outcome of the death-of-television-as-we-know-it. But we wonder how Comcast will solve the problem of searching millions of short video clips from the web with nothing more than a TV remote.

As if to follow up on yesterday’s conspiracy theory:

After Viacom sent YouTube a letter last week asking the video-sharing site to remove some of its copyrighted content, the two companies appear to have reached an understanding.

Suspicious yet?

Mark Cuban recently reposted an interesting “insider” tidbit from the Google + Youtube deal:

Since everyone was reaching into Google’s wallet, the big G wants to make sure the Youtube purchase was a wise one. Youtube’s value is predicated on it’s traffic and market leadership which Google needs to keep. If they simply agreed to remove all unauthorized content and saddle the user experience with ads Youtube would quickly be a skeleton of its prior self. Users would quickly move to competing sites. The media companies had 50 million reasons to want to help. Google needed a two pronged strategy which you see unfolding now.

To sum it all up, they claim that Google set aside a large portion of the $1.65 Billion to “pay off” the big media companies in a secret escrow account. In exchange, they agreed to drop all pending lawsuits to prevent the type of demise predicted here on BBB (and several other places). It will be interesting to see how people react at such an accusation. Since lawsuits are public record, it should be relatively simple to show companies suing much smaller video competitors for content which is already on Youtube’s site.

We’ll update you, precious readers, as this story develops.