Some vindication for Mark Cuban. A couple of weeks ago, he publicized a rumor that Google had set aside $500 million of their deal to buy YouTube as a fund to deal with the copyright issues the video-sharing service raised.
While onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit, Google CEO Eric Schmidt dismissed the idea.
Late yesterday, according to the Associated Press, this little fact emerged:
Google Inc. has set aside more than $200 million in its just-completed takeover of YouTube Inc. as a financial cushion to cover losses or possible legal bills for the frequent copyright violations on YouTube's video-sharing site.
Without elaborating in a late Monday statement, Google said it is withholding 12.5 percent of the stock owed to YouTube for one year "to secure certain indemnification obligations."
The Mountain View-based company disclosed the escrow account in an announcement commemorating the completion of its much-anticipated YouTube acquisition. As of Tuesday afternoon, Google representatives hadn't responded to requests for more details about the escrow account.
So, it's not $500 million, and Google's statement doesn't explicitly say the cash is for settling copyright issues with Big Content, but what other liabilities would YouTube have? They wrote their business plan with pirated copies of Office?
Tags: YouTube, Google, Mark Cuban, Big Content, copyright, Eric Schmidt