I did wonder why Google took over Youtube

[FourWheelDrift]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politic

BBC said:

Google has vowed to take a tough line on copyright when it completes its $1.65bn (£875m) takeover of YouTube.
The video-sharing website's rapid growth has been partly down to the thousands of clips from old TV shows uploaded illegally by its users.

That's precisely the reason I see why Youtube has had the success it has, without the old TV programs it becomes just another home movie and clip upload site like all the others out there and thus will get less hits and not be worth the money Google has paid for it (ok given the Youtube founders Google shares equivalent to the value).

The image quality of the Youtube flash videos have a low bitrate and are very poor so they could never be downloaded and converted to AVi/DVD format and be shown on a TV as they would just become a big pixelated mess.

[hut49]

I could never understand the reason for Google wanting to buy YouTube. It was obvious that as soon as YouTube was owned by a business with revenues it was going to get its corporate ass sued by every tom, dick and harry who claimed any copyright over You Tube content. Before the acquisition, those companies knew there was no point in even thinking about any litigation - it would have just cost them money. Whether Google is big enough to swallow the huge write down in asset value that seems to be heading their way will be interesting to watch - unless you own Google stock, I guess.