The U.K. is suddenly awash with online video services vying for attention. And there promises to be even more on the way. Following on from the full launch of SeeSaw, the MSN Video Player has launched after a lengthy period in beta. And it has improved considerably.

Online Video In The U.K.

Online video is veritably booming in the U.K.

The country already has the fantastic BBC iPlayer, my personal favorite 4oD from Channel 4, ITV Player, and Demand Five. And that’s just the catch-up services for the free-to-air terrestrial channels.

There is also Sky Player (for BSkyB subscribers), and the likes of YouTube, SeeSaw, and the MSN Video Player catering for people after older shows online. And Hulu is still endeavoring to kick-start its service in the U.K. as it breaks out of the U.S. and pushes into Europe.

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The 2010 Academy Awards are being held tonight, and Avatar and The Hurt Locker are the front-runners for the coveted ‘Best Picture’ Oscar. But both are beaten by District 9, at least if the number of downloaded torrents is the deciding factor.

Movie Piracy

Movie piracy has been with us for decades. The advent of home video made piracy a huge problem for Hollywood, and DVD and Blu-ray have continued that trend. But it’s the Internet that truly made piracy mainstream and something everyone does.

That is if you believe sharing media files on the Internet is piracy, of course. The law says it is, naturally.

File-sharing sites are probably more numerous now than ever before, with both well-known and underground options available to anyone who wants to acquire a media file – be it movie, TV show, game, computer program, or whatever – for free online.

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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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Hulu is losing all Comedy Central content, which includes the immensely popular The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. What’s more, Viacom is warning it may sue anyone uploading or embedding unauthorized clips on their sites. I smell trouble ahead.

Hulu Loses Big Names

Two of the most popular shows on Hulu are The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Unfortunately, neither will be available to watch on Hulu after March 9 as Viacom has decided in its infinite wisdom to pull all Comedy Central content from the site.

This is a big deal when you consider The Daily Show is only behind Lost and Family Guy in terms of the number of viewers it gains on Hulu. So if even those kinds of viewing figures aren’t making it worth Viacom’s while what about the less popular shows?

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The range of options available for watching Netflix ‘Watch Instantly’ streaming service is growing larger all the time. And Apple devices, the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the iPad, could soon be added to the list via an official Netflix app.

Netflix Mobile?

Netflix has grown in popularity massively over the last few years as it shifts from physical mailings to offering movies and TV shows via instant streaming over the Internet. And yet despite now being on a huge range of CE devices, it hasn’t yet made the move to mobile.

But that could be about to change, with a survey question from the company suggesting it’s at least toying with the idea of a Netflix iPhone app. And that same app would also be compatible with the Apple iPad, the oversized iPod Touch launching soon.

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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 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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