YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are unfazed despite several setbacks in the form of media’s recent legal and competitive challenges.
Although the Internet video pioneer is silent in last few months, they are very much active and keenly focused on developing different tools to police violation of copyrights.
Earlier this year, Viacom Inc. filed copyright infringement against YouTube with $1 billion claim. Other companies followed suit. To worsen the scenario, several media companies like NBC Universal and New Corp are also launching their own Internet video channel.
Nevertheless, YouTube believes its strength is firmly grounded on amateur, homemade videos. That’s why pulling out of professional videos will not completely erode its business.
Also, its much-anticipated new platform for showing video ads is expected to be out in a couple of months. Recently, YouTube is in talks with popular video contributors for revenue-sharing agreements. These initiatives are expected to expand customer base and increase its profitability.
Streaming more than 200 million videos daily, YouTube has become a cultural phenomenon.
“YouTube is becoming much more than an entertainment destination,” Hurley said, citing the political, news and instructional videos that have poured into YouTube in recent months. “We want to entertain, inform and empower people with video around the world.”
Originally posted on May 19, 2007 @ 9:06 am
Could Youtube survive without copyright material? Sure they still have enough user generated material to attract the eyeballs. Once they get everything sorted out to include some copyrighted material Youtube will get stronger from a long term business perspctive. the only real dmaiage (somewhat limited) will be when the TV networks launch their own streaming videos sites and they really clamp down on Youtube displaying any material that they want to keep exclusive.