Obviously, there's been a huge amount of comment on the announcement that Google will be acquiring YouTube for something over $1.65 billion in stock. From the legal perspective, there are suggestions that Google will be acquiring huge potential liabilities given the amount of pirated content on YouTube.
I suspect that Google's lawyers will be all over these potential liabilities like a rash, and that if there are any liabilities, then Google has deep enough pockets both to litigate and settle any potential claims as quickly and effectively as possible.
If you want more detail on the potential risks that Google might be facing, there's been a fascinating debate over on the Washington Street Journal website this week between John Palfrey, a law professor at Harvard University and director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Stan Liebowitz an economics professor at the University of Texas at Dallas and director of the Center for the Analysis of Property Rights and Innovation.
For what it's worth, I tend to agree with John Palfrey:
There is no doubt that Google will see lawsuits coming their way as a result of buying YouTube. And there's no doubt that some YouTube users will hear directly from the holders of copyrights. But I'm not too worried for Google's shareholders.
There more on the Info/Law blog and John Palfrey has more with plenty of links on his blog. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out....
Comments