YouTube could be heading for $1 billion in annual revenue as Google’s advertising efforts start paying off. Unfortunately, Google is facing a $1 billion lawsuit from Viacom over unauthorized clips on YouTube. The universe works in mysterious ways.

Google’s YouTube

Google acquired YouTube for a whopping $1.65 billion in October 2006, just 18 months after the domain name was registered. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has since stated he thinks the company paid way over the odds for the startup, but that it was a necessary purchase.

What Google got was a YouTube that’s very different than the one we see today. Piracy was still rife, with unauthorized clips all over the site. Although these were eventually removed it took a lot longer than it does these days.

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Even the most popular, loved, and revered sites on the Web need to evolve and change. Otherwise the next big thing will emerge to take its place. Which is why YouTube is currently embarking on a sizable redesign, with new features emerging every week.

YouTube Redesign

YouTube began testing its new redesign as part of TestTube, YouTube’s ideas incubator, last December. And while not all of the features and changes of Feather made it through to the final redesign, most have.

The redesign proper began in January, with all extraneous and unnecessary elements removed in favor of a more minimalist look and feel. Those first changes of a month ago were mostly aesthetic, but the newly-unveiled changes are a little more nuts-and-bolts.

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The original Rickroll video – essentially Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up – was removed by YouTube in a move which upset everyone who has ever pulled a Rickroll on anyone. But it was a mistake, a glaring Terms Of Use violation screw-up. Thank God for that.

Rickrolling Phenomenon

Any regular Web user will no doubt be aware of the phenomenon that is Rickrolling. In fact, everyone has probably been Rickrolled on more than one occasion.

Rickrolling began on the 4Chan message board back in 2007 but soon spread to the rest of the Web. In essence, you post a link to something you describe as interesting, cool, or must-see, when in fact the link leads to the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up, a Rick Astley track that sums up 1980s cheese in one three-minute package.

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The Italian legal system today faces charges of being an absolute joke. Not only were Google executives brought to trial over a UGC video that had nothing directly to do with them, they’ve now been convicted of breaking Italian privacy laws. Absolute bunkum.

Google Video Upload

In 2006, before Google acquired YouTube, a short video appeared on the now-defunct Google Video showing a disabled teenager being bullied by a group of his peers. One of the teenagers had uploaded the video, which remained on the site for a couple of months until complaints were received.

At that point, Google removed the video as fast as it could, and helped the Italian police track down the people responsible. The female uploader and several of her classmates were sentenced to 10 months community service.

That surely should have been the end of this sorry story, but it wasn’t.

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YouTube looks to be expanding its video rental service despite only mild success with the experiment with Sundance film festival offerings earlier this year. And it isn’t just films being offered for paid streaming, with anime, travel, craft, and fitness videos added to the mix.

YouTube Video Rentals

YouTube signaled its intent to start charging for some videos last September, with rumors of a movie rental service priced at $3.99-a-film emerging.

The trail then went cold until January of this year when YouTube officially released the first five offerings under the new service. Until then, the service had merely been trialled by Google employees.

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It feels like YouTube has been with us for ever. It’s such an essential part of the Web, and known by almost everyone, and yet it’s only been five years since the domain name was registered. Time to take a look at the past, present, and future of the ubiquitous video site.

YouTube’s Fifth Birthday

The YouTube.com domain was registered on Feb. 14, 2005. Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder, marked the anniversary with a post on the Official YouTube Blog.

In it, he talks about how important online video has become, how building partnerships are important, and how YouTube is constantly striving to be the standard-bearer in this constantly-evolving industry.

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The results of two recent court cases in the U.K. suggest that linking to but not hosting copyrighted content isn’t illegal, at least in Europe. Both TV-Links and the music-oriented OiNK have been cleared in the last month of the charges brought against them.

Linking Vs. Hosting

Hosting copyrighted content is illegal. That is an accepted part of the legal system. However, things get a little murkier and confused when a site is acting as a third-party, a go-between matching those hosting the content and those seeking it.

This has been tested in court a number of times, and the results have been mixed to say the least. In the U.S. it would appear linking is illegal, and sites such as Google only get away with it because of their Web directory nature, and even they have to remove links if asked to.

However, in the U.K., and potentially all countries in the European Union, linking to copyrighted material is not illegal.

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