• The Wall Street Journal, Friday, November 3, 2006 12:45 PM

Signing rights deals with major media companies is more complicated than Google and YouTube thought. As copyright infringement persists unheeded on Google's new viral video property, unhappy media companies are spelling out just how difficult it's going to be for the cavalier Internet giant to shore up the licensing deals it needs.

YouTube execs are finding it a slog to get all of the necessary permissions to license the songs and shows that users are putting on its site. YouTube's existing agreement with major record companies doesn't cover royalties for music publishers that control the copyrights to the lyrics and music underlying the recordings. That means the viral video site--which is still operating independent of Google until the deal is finalized--needs to seek out deals with music artists, actors and studios. With every missed deal, YouTube will face lawsuits, and then be forced to take content down.

The music publishing is a highly fragmented business--so sometimes, obtaining the rights to a song involves affiliates as well as the permission of record labels and music publishers. And that's just music. When you consider these implications, YouTube's quest for copyrights begins to look more like Google's ongoing attempt to digitize the world's library content. In other words--don't hold your breath.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »