Just finished reading an article about Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet) saying that whoever buys YouTube will be buying into many lawsuits because of copywrite infringement. "The only reason it hasn't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue."

YouTube, based in San Mateo, California, specialises in serving up short videos created by everyday people. Its popularity, with more than 100 million video showings daily, has spurred speculation the firm will be sold or taken public.

This month YouTube unveiled its first deal to distribute music videos legally from a major music company by agreeing a deal with Warner Music Group, home to pop stars James Blunt and Madonna.

In other remarks, meanwhile, the often-controversial Cuban also told advertisers that the reach of [TAG-TEC]YouTube[/TAG-TEC] is limited, particularly when it comes to user-generated videos.

"User-generated content is not going away," he said. "But do you want your advertising dollars spent on a video of Aunt Jenny watching her niece tap dance?"
"Somebody puts up something really good and you get, what, 60,000 viewers?" Cuban added during the event at Advertising Week in New York.
YouTube now offers advertising through banner ads, promotions and sponsorships. It has said it plans to roll out a range of different advertising options over the coming year.

Cuban cautioned advertisers against investing heavily in so-called viral campaigns that are spread by users beyond their initial point of distribution on YouTube or other video sharing sites. But he touted opportunities to run commercials on high-definition television such as his HDNet network.
"What makes viral so special is it's so hard to do. It's so hard to plan. It's hard to stand out," he said, describing 99 percent of money advertisers spend on viral campaigns as "wasted."

Some content from Reuters

Web video sensation YouTube.com, which serves up more than 100 million videos online a day, suffered a six-hour breakdown overnight - its first-ever unplanned outage, a company spokeswoman confirmed.

The news coincided with reports that YouTube is in talks with record labels to post thousands of free music videos online, aiming to move beyond being a site for sharing home videos to a provider of mainstream entertainment like Yahoo and others.

Access to the YouTube site was cut off around midnight in Australia and was only restored around 6:30am, or six hours later, according to a spokeswoman.

"We are experiencing a temporary site outage due to a database-related issue," YouTube said in an e-mail to Reuters five hours after the outage began.

"To clarify and ensure accuracy, the site is not down for maintenance," spokeswoman Julie Supan said in a statement released shortly before the site recovered. "This was an unplanned outage."

YouTube, which sprung out of nowhere a year ago to now claim over 100 millions views a day, also said on Tuesday it was negotiating for rights to post current and archive music videos on its site, and said any commercial model it decides on will offer the videos free.

"What we really want to do is in six to 12 months, maybe 18 months, to have every music video ever created up on YouTube," co-founder Steve Chen told Reuters. "We're trying to bring in as much of this content as we can on to the site."

He said YouTube intends to differentiate itself from pay-to-view or download services like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes and Time Warner's AOL Music, or others like Yahoo's Yahoo Music, which is supported by an advertising revenue share model with record labels.

San Mateo, California-based YouTube says its videos account for 60 percent of all videos watched online. The site specializes in short, homemade, comic clips created by users.

The start-up plans to integrate the record companies' videos into the community features of its site, allowing users to add the videos to their own profiles and post reviews like on Amazon.com and RealNetworks' Rhapsody.

Its business model is being developed in tandem with all the major record labels, YouTube said, but did not give any names. Warner Music Group Corp and EMI confirmed to Reuters that they have been in discussions with YouTube.

"Yahoo Launch is almost an exact parallel of MTV but viewed through a web browser," Chen said. "We add the whole user community feel, with 100 million views every day and user-generated content."

Getting the record labels to agree to a business model is crucial as YouTube has run into trouble in the past when users posted copyrighted videos from television shows.

In March, the San Mateo, California start-up was asked by television broadcaster NBC to remove clips of the popular "Lazy Sunday" hip-hop spoof, which was originally broadcast on "Saturday Night Live."

However, that order by NBC, whose parent NBC Universal is a unit of General Electric, was a precursor to a promotional partnership with YouTube a few months later in June. YouTube says its policy is to take down pirated content from the site as soon as it is aware of it.

"Right now we're trying to very quickly determine how and what the model is to distribute this content and we're very aggressive in assisting the labels in trying to get the content on to YouTube," Chen added.

Warner Music and EMI said they are each trying to work out a business model with YouTube. Other major record companies including Universal Music and Sony BMG could not be reached for immediate comment.

"We're obviously interested in legitimate use scenarios and trying to broaden those, and our focus with YouTube is how to be partners while protecting our artists and ensuring they get paid," said Michael Nash, senior vice-president of digital and business development at Warner Music.

Internet audience measurement firm comScore Networks on Tuesday released data showing how YouTube surged into the No. 40 ranking in July among US Web sites, with 16 million visitors, up 20 percent just since June.

Reuters