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"Google in bid to halt YouTube legal threat," shouts the Financial Times. "Google is engaged in a frantic round of negotiations aimed at persuading traditional media companies to supply their content to YouTube, the video website it bought last month for $1.65bn, and ward off a potentially crippling round of lawsuits."

Yep. And that's just what they bought YouTube for.

As Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said last month, no media company wanted to buy YouTube because no media company wanted to be the test case for the inevitable round of copyright lawsuits. Everyone saw what happened to Napster in the 90s, and they knew fighting such a battle could sap their resources, and victory was not guaranteed.

But Google, bless its hubristic heart, was ready to fight. Google stood to lose a lot if an independent YouTube lost copyright cases. But now that the giant owns YouTube, it can throw its full weight behind not only fighting lawsuits, but staving them off with deals.

In other words, Google bought the lawsuits. And that may be its smartest purchase yet.

Google in bid to halt YouTube legal threat [Financial Times]
A Brief Interview with EFF's Fred von Lohmann [John Battelle's Searchblog]