YouTube, the never-ending saga

Filed in archive Internet TV on April 26, 2007

Here's the good news: YouTube may start splitting advertising revenue with small-fry content owners like you and me. Here's the bad news: there is no revenue to share.

Last week Variety wrote that "content creators who upload their videos to the site will be offered the option of having short ads shown at the beginning or end, with the resulting revenues split 50-50. Key to the new venture will be making sure that those who upload video actually own the rights to it -- which has been a vexing issue in the past for YouTube ..."

An analyst from bear stearns & Co. has estimated the site's 2006 revenue at a paltry $15 million; Google paid $1.65 billion to acquire the company. You gotta love those financial ratios.

Figuring out who controls which content on YouTube has long been a problem, as the site is required by law to remove content when copyright holders ask. Basically, the arrogance at Google states that so long as they comply to the law that says that video content is legal until an owner asks for it to be taken down, then all is fine.

My favorite story that helps point out how hapless YouTube is in this area is that someone purporting to represent the Australian Broadcasting Corp. asked YouTube to remove all its content. YouTube complied, before finding out that a 16-year-old in Australia had sent the letter. The ABC got in touch and asked YouTube to put it back in.