YouTube, once a pirate, now legitimate: Signs deal with Time Warner
YouTube, the popular video site that was intensely disliked by music and film labels for the endless copyrighted material it would feature, continues to make steady steps to toward acceptance.
Today, it announced on its biggest content partnerships yet: an online video distribution agreement with Time Warner that will give users access to variety of Time Warner’s news, television shows and movies. The agreement will also allow Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Entertainment and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. to use a Time Warner embeddable player when showing this content on YouTube.
The move is significant because it comes at a time when YouTube’s owner, Google, has signaled that it expects YouTube to be profitable soon. If YouTube is making money from running ads on its content, Google needs to be sure that such content is legitimate. By signing deals with major publishers, Google will help fend off the sort of lawsuits that hit YouTube early on. Viacom, for example, sued Google two years ago, for not doing enough to stop copyrighted content from being pirated, and has so far held off from signing a deal with YouTube. YouTube has already signed deals with Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal, MGM studios and Walt Disney.
The Time Warner clips will range from CNN news coverage to Cartoon Network, Adult Swim animated shows, TNT’s hit dramas and programming like “Gossip Girl” and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” Another Time Warner property, HBO, has already been programming a branded channel on YouTube since early last year with promotional content from shows including “True Blood,” “Hung” and “Entourage.”
[Image credit: WebproNews]
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