YouTube is growing stronger every day. Which just shows how the balance of power has shifted over the last few years. At some point we’re not actually going to need TV as we now know it.

YouTube Milestones

The Google-owned YouTube is celebrating hitting new milestones. And the statistics being touted are pretty spectacular.

YouTube videos are now viewed 4 billion times every day. To put that into context that’s the equivalent of more than half the world’s population watching one video on YouTube on a daily basis. And it’s an increase of 25 percent in the last eight months.

Also up massively are the number of uploads, with 60 hours of video added to YouTube every minute. In other words, one hour of video every second. Eight months ago, in May 2011, it was 48 hours uploaded every minute.

YouTube has helpfully created its own video (and site) showing what these numbers mean in real terms.

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MegaUpload is no more, at least in its former capacity. We can now look forward to a long and expensive legal battle, and no difference whatsoever being made to how content is shared over the Internet.

MegaUpload Goes Down

One of the biggest websites in the world, and the most-trafficked cyberlocker services on the Web, MegaUpload, has been taken offline. Furthermore, several of the company’s key employees, including founder Kim Dotcom, have been arrested and charged.

The takedown and arrests were the culmination of a two-year investigation into the site and its alleged breaching of copyright infringement laws. 20 search warrants were executed in at least seven countries.

The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that those involved with the company made millions of dollars by turning a blind eye to the file-sharing of copyrighted content that was happening on MegaUpload’s servers. This despite MegaUpload complying with DMCA notices from media companies.

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Web video is maturing, with original programming coming to online content companies. Following hot on the heels of the likes of Netflix, Yahoo! is getting into the original programming game with Electric City.

Electric City

Tom Hanks has had a series in mind for many years, but he’s been waiting for the right opportunity to get it out to the public. That opportunity has now arrived thanks to the Internet.

According to the Associated Press, Electric City will premiere on Yahoo! in the spring. There will be 20 episodes, each 3- to 4-minutes long, of the animated series which taps into social issues.

Gary Goetzman, co-founder of Playtone, Hanks’ production company, said, “It was always our intent to have this project live and breathe online, and we felt Yahoo! would be the perfect home.”

Yahoo! has been upping its original content, but Electric City represents its first foray into scripted programming.

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After years of speculation and months of planning, Netflix has finally landed in Europe, launching in the U.K. and Ireland at the beginning of the week. Everyone is being a one-month free trial, at the end of which the streaming-only service will cost £5.99-per-month.

Netflix In UK & Ireland

The usual rules apply here as they have done in the U.S. for many years (and Canada and Latin America more recently) – streaming to a huge range of devices including smart TVs, games consoles such as the PS3 and Xbox 360, Blu-ray players, tablets, and PCs.

Content, as always, is key. On that score Netflix is doing OK but could do better. I suspect it’ll be forging new deals over the next few months. It will need to if it hopes to keep hold of all those likely to have signed up for the free trial in order to see what the fuss is about.

Netflix CEO reed Hastings told BBC News, “We think about it as trying to get to millions of members over the next few years. We very much think of it as a long-term investment.”

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If you download movies from the Internet then there’s a small chance you’ll get caught. If you run a site offering the movies for download then the chances of being caught ramp up considerably. Especially if you’re the public face of said site.

NinjaVideo

Hana Amal Beshara, the co-founder of NinjaVideo [domain seized], a website which offered downloads of first-run movies, has been sentenced to 22 months in prison followed by two years of supervised release. In addition she will complete 500 hours of community service and have to repay the $209,826.95 she is alleged to have earned from the site.

NinjaVideo was one of nine websites taken down in June 2010 as part of Operation In Our Sites. In the two years the site was running it brought in around $500,000. Beshara is one of five admins convicted over the site, all of whom have pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy and copyright infringement.

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Roku sees a future when we will all have a Roku Streaming Stick plugged into the back of our televisions. It has to be the future, however, because most televisions are currently incapable of powering the device.

Roku Boxes

The idea of streaming video content directly to a television set was pie in the sky just a few years ago, but now there are numerous methods for achieving this, and more are being added all the time.

Roku is an established company with an established product. Its set-top box started life in 2008 as a means for Netflix subscribers to watch content on their TVs. But Netflix expanded to multiple other devices, while Roku added more content.

There are now a range of different Roku set-top boxes available, and the company is breaking out of its self-imposed U.S. borders to launch in the U.K. and Canada sometime in 2012.

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2012 is the year Netflix becomes more than just a company which stream other people’s content. Instead, it has become a content producer itself, with multiple original series on its books.

Netflix As Producer

Netflix has done well to this point as first a DVD-by-mail company and then a video streaming company. But it wants more. Partly as a way of encouraging new subscribers to sign up, partly as a way of adding content to its line-up without having to pay exorbitant fees.

Netflix has several original series in the offing, including House Of Cards starring Kevin Spacey and new episodes of the network-canceled Arrested Development. But first up is Lilyhammer, which now has a release date.

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