• Bloomberg, Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:45 PM

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 shows like "The Office," and will do so for any other studios that request it. Even so, that doesn't protect it from the pitfalls of rampant copyright violation, says Lee Bromberg, an intellectual-property attorney at Boston-based law firm Bromberg & Sunstein.

"It's awfully hard," he noted, to get permission from everyone whose content may appear on the site. Even Google's quarterly report pointed out that "substantial harm" could result from copyright lawsuits, despite having forged revenue-share agreements with several TV studios and recording companies.

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