YouTube has signed a licensing agreement with Paramount with almost 500 new titles arriving on YouTube and Google Play. The news of the deal comes just as Paramount celebrates its 100th year.
"We’re pleased to announce a new licensing agreement with Paramount Pictures which will bring nearly 500 new movie titles to YouTube and Google Play over the next few weeks to people in the U.S. and Canada," said Malik Ducard, director of content partnerships at YouTube. "With the addition of Paramount, we now have five of the six major studios and over ten independent movie studios offering nearly 9,000 movies for rent to millions of people around the world. It’s still early days for us, and we’ll continue adding new titles and expanding our service to more countries this year."
Both YouTube and Paramount’s parent companies battled it out in one of the meanest copyright battles over the past few years. In 2007 Google and YouTube were sued by Viacom in which they were accused of allegedly encouraging its users to pirate Viacom’s films and TV shows. Viacom was seeking damages of up $1bn at the time. Even though YouTube won in federal court Viacom appealed the decision.
Google’s said the win against Viacom was a victory for "the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other."
However, both companies seem certain not to let lawsuits stand in the way of making lucrative partnerships.
YouTube is currently the world’s most popular online video website with 4 billion videos being streamed daily.
