A fascinating anonymous post from an alleged insider on the real goings on behind the youtube/google deal. None of it is guranteed to be accurate/true but it is incredible to read anyway:

> The media companies had their typical challenges. Specifically, how to
> get money from Youtube without being required to give any to the
> talent (musicians and actors)? If monies were received as part of a
> license to Youtube then they would contractually obligated to share a
> substantial portion of the proceeds with others. For example most
> record label contracts call for artists to get 50% of all license
> deals. It was decided the media companies would receive an equity
> position as an investor in Youtube which Google would buy from them.
> This shelters all the up front monies from any royalty demands by
> allowing them to classify it as gains from an investment position. A
> few savvy agents might complain about receiving nothing and get a
> token amount, but most will be unaware of what transpired.
>
> 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.
>
> The first request was a simple one and that was an agreement to look
> the other way for the next 6 months or so while copyright infringement
> continues to flourish. This standstill is cloaked in language about
> building tools to help manage the content and track royalties, some of
> which is true but also G knows that every day they can operate in the
> shadows of copyright law is another day that Youtube can grow. It
> should be noted that Google video is a capable Youtube competitor with
> the ONE big difference being a much more sincere effort to not post
> unauthorized works - and Google fully appreciates what a difference
> that makes. So you can continue to find movie clips, tv show segments
> and just about every music video on Youtube today.

Google/Youtube previously. (via.)