YouTube Turns Copyright Violations into Advertising Opportunity

Google continues to challenge the old $1 billion suit with Viacom amongst privacy concerns and earlier attempts to allow advertising. Now, in another attempt to quell lawsuits and drive revenue, Google has introduced a system for copyright holders to claim and takeover popular videos featuring their content. In addition to taking the videos out of the hands of private users, the companies are allowed to embed advertising within the content.

The New York Times writes:

“We don’t want to condone people taking our intellectual property and using it without our permission,” said Curt Marvis, the president of digital media at Lionsgate Entertainment, which owns films like “Dirty Dancing” and the “Saw” series of horror movies. “But we also don’t like the idea of keeping fans of our products from being able to engage with our content” he said. “For the most part, people who are uploading videos are fans of our movies. They’re not trying to be evil pirates, and they’re not trying to get revenue from it.”

…Google has pushed the video site to innovate in the ad arena. [Google CEO Eric E.] Schmidt said last month: “I personally do not believe that the perfect ad product for YouTube has been invented yet.”

[via The New York Times]