In his column today, writer Adam Lashinsky gives Silicon Valley a tongue-lashing for disregarding and disrespecting copyright law. He argues that the incredible performance of Internet sites like Google and YouTube is predicated on content that belongs to someone else. "Performance metrics that businesspeople elsewhere wouldn't recognize are coin of the realm [in Silicon Valley]," Lashinsky writes, adding, "it's an obnoxious attitude that nevertheless undoubtedly fuels a good deal of the tech industry's outsized success." That's one way of looking at it, but like it or not, media is changing. If revolutionary enablers like YouTube and …

Online video is omnipresent in the media, but how important an activity is it for Web users? Not as big as you might think. As recently as April, Forrester Research found that just 25% of users reported online video as one of the top three activities they perform online. InsightExpress, another research firm, found that among heavy Web users, 54% watched or streamed online video, but that still lagged far behind entering contests (84%), playing games (73%), listening to Internet radio (71%), reviewing products (68%) and sharing photos (67%). Advertisers will be encouraged by the following numbers, released …

Time Warner's inability to grow AOL after its value sank during the dot-com bust has left many wondering why the media giant continues to keep it. But Time Warner chief Dick Parsons is adamant that the Internet service provider-cum-Web portal will soon be worth as much as $26 billion. "It's even conservative," he says. "The reason I always resisted the call to sell AOL ... is because I believe in the business." Good, Dick. To many, that might sound like one of those out-of-touch Go-Go-CEO pronouncements. What's on offer at AOL that sets it apart from say, Yahoo or …

Viacom on Wednesday announced that its Comedy Central network is refining its broadband strategy, in light of the uncertainty over the presence of its material on video sites like YouTube. Motherload, Comedy Central's Web site, is now adding a video player that allows users to grab and embed their favorite clips from its shows on their own Web pages. The new video player is part of a broader effort to make over the channel's Web site. The player uses Macromedia Flash, the same format as YouTube, and the clips will be ad-supported. This, by the way, could become a …

Sony releases the PlayStation 3 tomorrow, but you won't be getting one unless you pre-ordered several months ago. Manufacturing the powerful system has proven to be a big problem--and a big cost--for the electronics giant. Sony really needs the PS3 to be a hit; failure could literally bankrupt the company, which has had a particularly bad year. Remember the notebook battery recall? That was Sony, and it was the largest in history. Declining overall profits have resulted in the company laying off 20,000 employees in the last two years. There's no way the PS3 can lift the company …

This is rich: YouTube's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to TechCrunch purveyor Michael Arrington earlier this week, accusing the company of violating YouTube's Terms of Use, of "tortious interference of a business relationship, and in fact, many business relationships," of committing an "unfair business practice," and "false advertising." What did TechCrunch do? They created a tool that lets people download YouTube clips to their hard drives. Arrington claims that TechCrunch carefully reviewed YouTube's Terms of Use, which says nothing about disallowing users from downloading videos. "YouTube takes the position that everything uploaded to the site is licensed for use …

The goal is to find the most relevant video. There are several reasons why organizing video for search is more complicated than text. For one thing, clips are encoded in many different technologies and formats, from Windows media files to Real Player files to Flash--but they also appear in many different Web sites like Yahoo Video, YouTube, and Revver. Then there's professionally produced content from CNN.com, CBSNews.com, even News Corp.'s MySpace. What do you use to make that information searchable? Even if you can find out a way to incorporate metadata, somewhere along the line you have to incorporate …

According to new research from Gartner, power-hungry hardware companies and rising global fuel prices could contribute to energy costs eating up more than one-third of IT budgets within the next five years. Inflation hasn't hit tech companies that badly, partly because oil prices have cooled somewhat. But just about everybody knows that the price of oil affects the price of just about everything else, and it's got nowhere to go but up, according to the report. That fact, compounded with the rising global demand for greater computing capacity, means that technology companies in general will be using a …

Google set aside a sizable purse for potential lawsuits from its $1.6 billion acquisition of YouTube. But it wasn't the $500 million that many suggested. Nevertheless, $200 million is certainly not an insignificant number, and it underscores the problems Google faces as it forages ahead into online video. As the search giant sealed the YouTube deal yesterday, it revealed that 12.5% of the shares issued to buy the company for one year had been set aside "to secure certain indemnification obligations," which is legalese for safeguarding copyright violations. Partnership agreement notwithstanding, YouTube agreed to remove clips from NBC …

Online video sensation YouTube could have a real competitor on its hands in Europe. A French video site called Daily Motion is growing steadily, already boasting 16 million page views per month, while adding 9,000 new videos per day. The Paris-based company mostly caters to a French-speaking audience, which makes it poised to grab a significant share of Europe's fastest-growing Web audience. YouTube, by comparison, commands 64% of the online video market in the English-speaking U.K. Still, YouTube has a greater share than Daily Motion across Europe--with a 10% to 12% reach versus Daily Motion's 2%, according to comScore. …