Google Negotiating to Stop Copyright Lawsuits

Posted on November 3, 2006

The Financial Times reports that Google is in a "frantic round" of negotiations to halt the removal of copyrighted videos from YouTube.com. Google is also trying to avoid potential copyright lawsuits.

Google is engaged in a frantic round of negotiations aimed at persuading traditional media companies to supply their content to YouTube, the video website it bought last month for $1.65bn, and ward off a potentially crippling round of lawsuits.

Chief executive Eric Schmidt and other managers have met CBS, Viacom, Time Warner, NBC Universal, News Corp and others, say people familiar with the talks, offering tens of millions of dollars in upfront payments for the right to broadcast their video content legally on YouTube.

For Google the talks could determine whether its investment in YouTube gives it a leading position in the fast-growing online video market or results in a wave of lawsuits for copyright infringement.

The article said some media experts think YouTube could suffer the same fate as Napster if the copyright problems are not solved. Some legal experts are privately questioning why Google's attorneys did not discover the existence of the apparent trademark and copyright problems when they did their due diligence regarding the purchase of YouTube.com.

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