We earlier reported how rumors were saying that Google would acquire YouTube. We then said that one of the biggest obstacles for such a deal was that YouTube was under a lot of pressure from the entertainment industry since users have a tendency to upload copyrighted material onto the site. As a first step towards a merge both Google abd YouTube have signed deals with Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony BMG to spread music videos from the companies through their video services. The companies made the deals separately but the press releases appeared only with a few minutes apart.
Google has now made a press release where they tell us they have acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in a stock exchange. From the press release:
“The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. “Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers.”
“Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people consume media, creating a new clip culture. By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners,” said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-Founder of YouTube. “I’m confident that with this partnership we’ll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide.”
