Goo-Tube uncovered

I was down at the Digital Hollywood conference speaking last week and all anyone could talk about was the Google-YouTube deal. I have to admit it got a little sickening after a while. Most of the talk was all garbage, but this post that Mark Cuban re-posted on his blog (can do you that?) is pretty interesting: http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/10/30/some-intimate-details-on-the-google-youtube-deal/

Some of the more interesting points/theories:

• Of the $1.65B over $500M is being kept in escrow to fight legal battles
• The music studios all took equity stakes in YouTube just prior to the deal in leiu of getting cash from Google/YouTube so they wouldn't have to pay royalties
• Google asked the studios and labels to put the pressure on other smaller video sites so they could get a bigger share of the market (that smells like anti-trust or something nasty to me)