Totally Tubular

"YouTube is viewed 50 million times and 50,000 video uploads occur each day, according to company statistics." Via BetaNews | YouTube Strikes Back at Yahoo Video, which also discusses the "Blog Video" functionality added earlier this month — a feature which automatically embeds any YouTube video into a post on any weblog using Blogger, Blog*Spot, or LiveJournal (support for other platforms in the works). In case you're wondering about the copyright ramifications of that, under the YouTube Terms of Use, "[y]ou also hereby grant each user of the YouTube Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms of Service." (Emphasis added.) It's like a mandatory, site functionality-specific CC license, and a broad one at that: no need to give attribution, and derivative works and commercial use are a-OK. Note that no one seems to be kicking up a fuss about this [Update: though the license you grant YouTube itself has raised some eyebrows], and note too (how could you miss it?) how central it is to YouTube's positive user experience and staggering growth. But does this mean YouTube-hosted vids will be the foundation for other commercial ventures? You bet [via Marty Schwimmer]. [Update: Yahoo!, too.]

[Tags: youtube, online video, creative commons, copyright]