As we've pointed out, one of the biggest question marks hanging over Google's acquisition of YouTube is that YouTube seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Sure, some of the most popular videos on the site have been non-copyrighted materials like a guy dancing on stage and a girl in her room complaining about her possibly Satan-worshiping parents. But there's an awful lot of Daily Show and South Park clips up there too.
According to the Guardian, Time Warner is preparing to take action to keep their copyrighted material off of YouTube. CEO Dick Parsons says Time Warner was already in negotiations with YouTube, and that the recent merger with Google (with the deep pockets) has nothing to do with Time Warner's decision to get involved now. Of course, suing YouTube might have led to content being removed from the site, and maybe even the site going down or having to restructure its business. But now that Google's involved, litigation could be very profitable. If you're successful.
No word yet on if and and when Time Warner might actually take legal action, or if other content producers have plans to do so.
Via DVguru
1. Its worth mentioning that Google owns 5% of Time Warner's AOL.
In a roundabout way Time Warner is suing itself.
Posted at 12:34PM on Oct 13th 2006 by Chris Tew