Dick Parsons, the chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, said the company would pursue copyright infringement cases against YouTube, the video sharing site acquired by Google this week for $1.65 Billion. “You can assume we’re in negotiations with YouTube,” Parsons said in an interview with The Guardian, “and that those negotiations will be kicked up to the Google level in the hope that we can get to some acceptable position.” He said Google’s acquisition of YouTube was not the deciding factor in his decision to take heightened action. “If you let one thing ignore your rights as an owner it makes it much more difficult to defend those rights when the next guy comes along.” Parsons did concede that he would be interested in Time Warner’s content being displayed on YouTube, but for a price. We’d like to have our content displayed on these platforms, but on a basis that it respects our rights as the owner of that content.” YouTube founder Chad Hurley said he does not have copyright infringement fears because of actions the company is taking to curb the issue. “We’re committed to developing tools to identify the content and monetize it so [content owners] can have a new outlet for their content.” Warner Music, Sony BMG, and CBS have all made recent deals with YouTube to allow their content to be used in return for revenue sharing.

Links: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1921154,00.html http://video.google.com http://www.youtube.com