Google Play Partners with Paramount on Movie Rentals

Google today announced that it is adding nearly 500 Paramount movies for transactional video-on-demand on Google Play and YouTube over the next several months. The rentals will be available to consumers in the U.S. and Canada.

Google now has content-sharing deals with five of the six major studios (20^th Century Fox is the lone holdout), and 10 independent studios (Washington Post)

The rental pricing is comparable to most rentals on Google Play – $3.99 for new releases and $2.99 for most catalog titles, with an added $1 premium for HD content.  Once rented, movies can be watched once for a 24-hour window over a 30-day period.

Google Play (previously known as Android Market) lets users buy or rent movies, music and books for download to Android-based portable devices and the TV.

House Deliberates ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’

Supporters and detractors of the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) gave testimony before the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, as the legislative chamber seeks to toughen the nation’s intellectual property enforcement measures during the current legislative session.

The U.S. Copyright Office joined Hollywood studios and other content distributors in endorsing of SOPA, with Maria Pallante, Register of Copyrights, testifying before the House committee that the legislation “provides 21st century tools to the Department of Justice with respect to foreign infringing websites.” Pallante stressed her office’s view that SOPA neither embodies a “zero tolerance” enforcement approach that would risk curtailing of First Amendment rights; nor does the legislation “affect the safe harbors that Internet service providers enjoy under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).” The full text of Pallante’s statement is here.

Google’s copyright counsel, Katherine Oyama, countered with several examples of how SOPA would “undermine” the DMCA safe harbors, impacting the business of “virtually every Internet company.”

Full video webcast of Tuesday’s House proceedings is here; more on the lobbying battle between opposing interests over SOPA at The Hill.

Netflix Plans Streaming Service Expansion in UK and Ireland

Ahead of its Monday third quarter earnings call, Netflix announced that it will bring its streaming video subscription service to the United Kingdom and Ireland in early 2012.

Netflix said that customers in the UK and Ireland will be able to watch streams of TV shows and movies on their home televisions through a range of consumer electronics devices capable of streaming from Netflix, as well as on PCs, Macs, and mobile tablets and phones. The company said it would disclose further details about the service, including pricing, content and supported devices, closer to the service’s launch date.

In the UK, Netflix will compete against Amazon-owned LoveFilm, which offers subscribers both DVD rentals and movie streams. Google’s YouTube also has begun to market a-la-carte online movie rentals in the UK (via The Guardian).

Netflix will release results for its third quarter (ended Sept. 30) after the stock market closes on Monday. Analysts and shareholders are eager to learn whether the company lost U.S. customers after its price increase went into full effect in September.

Analyst: Google Should Prevail in Hulu Sale

Media analyst Richard Greenfield contends that Hulu’s owners would be wise to retain their interests in the online video site “to have direct control of their digital future” (registration required). But in what looks to be a likely sale of the site by Comcast, News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Providence Equity, Greenfield says that YouTube owner Google “is the most compelling” buyer.

Among the factors Google has in its favor, Greenfield says, are the company’s “incredibly deep pockets,” which it would use to acquire more content for Hulu. For content owners, the analyst says, a Google-owned Hulu could further develop the marketplace for digital rights “beyond Netflix currently and to a lesser degree Amazon.”

Greenfield speculates that Google’s size, however, could stir seller concerns that they would be ceding too much control over their business to the Internet company.

Initial bids for Hulu are due this weekend; other companies reported to have an interest include Amazon, DirecTV, and Yahoo.

Hulu Bids Will Be Based on Site’s Content Licensing Agreements: Report

Bids this week for Hulu could range between $500 million and $2 billion, one source close to the sale of the online video service tells The Wall Street Journal. The main factor in determining a price is the nature of content licensing agreements that Hulu would be able to secure with its current owners, which include Disney, NBCUniversal, and News Corp. Companies expected to bid on Hulu include Amazon.com, Google, and Yahoo, as well as DirecTV. Initial bids are due Wednesday.

Google Looks To Gain Leverage with Music Beta

A Google executive tells The New York Times that the launch of its cloud-based music storage and streaming service, sans support from record labels, is a negotiating tactic to win the Internet giant more “sustainable” licensing terms from music companies. But exactly how much leverage Google will gain with its Music Beta remains to be seen. An early hands-on review of the service gives it poor marks for functionality and ease of use (VentureBeat).

Google Music Launches With More Cloud Storage than Amazon, No Store (Yet)

Google is following Amazon.com into the cloud music space, launching a service that gives users the ability to upload as many as 20,000 songs to an online locker for streaming to Web-enabled computers or Android mobile devices. And as with Amazon’s Cloud Player, major labels have no involvement.

The Google service will start as a free, invite-only beta program; music fans can request an invitation at music.google.com. Users can upload their iTunes or Windows Media Player libraries, complete with playlists and song ratings, and access the music on their Android phone or tablet through an app. The devices cache recently-played songs so that users can continue to play music even while offline.

For the moment, Google Music aims to simplify consumers’ experience of listening to digital music. Unveiling the service at Google’s I/O developer conference Tuesday, a company representative said the wireless service heralded the end of “painful syncing” of digital music libraries between phones and computers.

What of major labels’ participation? In contrast to Amazon, Google lacks a digital music storefront. If Google’s remarks to business press today are any indication, broad label support for the company’s music effort is unlikely to arrive anytime soon.

“We’ve been in negotiations with the industry for a different set of features, with mixed results,” Zahavah Levine, Google’s director of content partnerships, tells Billboard. “A couple of major labels were less focused on innovation and more on demanding unreasonable and unsustainable business terms.”

At its developer conference, Google also demonstrated a prototype music application that one day could see integration with the cloud-based service: a home sensor could read tags embedded in the jewel cases of packaged CDs, unlocking access to the albums in a user’s Google Music Account.

Amazon, meanwhile, seems to be quietly expanding its Cloud Player service to be compatible with Apple iOS devices, such as the iPhone (via TechCrunch). Although Amazon warns iOS device users that Cloud Player does not support the Safari Internet browser, the service does in fact work via Safari. Amazon, which markets a Cloud Player app for Android devices, has yet to formally announce any expansion of the streaming service to iOS.

Apple To Account for Three Quarters of 2011 App Market

Combined revenues from the four major mobile application stores run by Apple, Google, Nokia, and Research in Motion will increase by 77% in 2001 to $3.8 billion, according to research firm IHS Screen Digest. Yet despite rapid growth in Google’s Android Market and elsewhere, the Apple App Store still will claim more than three quarters of the industry’s app sales.

Projected figures for the Apple App Store this year call for revenue of $2.91 billion, up 63.4% from $1.78 billion in 2010. Given that Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPod and iPad are the market leaders in their field, IHS Screen Digest says, the company’s App Store is expected to take in 76% of revenue this year and retain 60% market share by 2014.

Google’s Android Market, meanwhile, will see the industry’s fastest growth in 2011. Android Market revenue will increase by 295% this year to $425.36 million, on its way to become the second-largest application store.

IHS analyst Jack Kent says that consumers have shown an “unflagging interest in downloading games and other applications” to smartphones and tablets this year.

The total number of downloaded applications in 2011 is expected to reach 18.1 billion by year-end, nearly doubling last year’s total of  9.5 billion.

Among Tablet Owners, Devices Supplanting TV: Study

More than one third of tablet computer owners (34%) already spend more time each day using their devices than they do watching TV, according to new research from Google’s AdMob. The survey of some 1,400 tablet users reveals game playing to be the most common tablet activity, at 84% of respondents; more than half (51%) consume entertainment such as music or videos on their devices.

Among other findings on the nature of tablet use: 68% of tablet users spend at least 1 hour a day on their tablet, and 82% primarily use their tablet at home.

Google to Unveil 24-Hour Notice-and-Takedown Improvements

Google’s SVP and general counsel, Kent Walker, told legislators in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday that the company plans to unveil “in the next week or two” improvements to its procedure for removing links to infringing content from Google sites.

Testifying before a House subcommittee on issues of intellectual property enforcement, Walker said that the Internet giant was testing the new system, which seeks to remove links to infringing material within 24 hours of Google receiving requests from content providers.

The new turnaround time aims to boost the effectiveness of the “notice and takedown” process outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Currently, Walker said, Google’s YouTube can act on infringement notices within minutes; but he acknowledged that link removals from other Google sites can take days or even weeks.

Walker’s comments came in response to questioning from Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fl.), who took the company to task for not implementing improvements sooner. The Congresswoman cited data from music industry trade group IFPI that during February 2011, 46% of the infringement notices that record labels sent to Google concerning blogs on Google’s Blogspot network remained active for more than seven days.

“You really have an obligation to take those down within 24 hours,” Wasserman Schultz told Walker.

The Google executive conceded that refining the notice-and-takedown process with copyright holders has been a “continuing conversation,” but he maintained his belief that the parties were “making really material progress.”

The new measures make good on a specific initiative Google announced in December to tighten its copyright controls.

The House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday was the Congressional chamber’s second in recent weeks, as lawmakers consider proposing new ways to stem online infringement and sales of counterfeit physical goods.

Google Response in Viacom Suit: YouTube Merits ‘Safe Harbor’ Protection

In a brief submitted yesterday to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Google lays out its arguments for why YouTube should be held free of copyright infringement liability in a $1 billion lawsuit brought by Viacom.

Not only did YouTube act in compliance with the notice-and-takedown requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Google says; Viacom employees themselves posted copyrighted material to the online video site, to promote the companies’ programming.

“Plaintiffs cannot point to a single clip that YouTube knew was infringing but did not take down,” Google states in its brief. “Nor can plaintiffs make any serious claim that YouTube should have known simply by looking at a given video whether it infringed their copyrights. That is due in part to the ways that plaintiffs themselves used YouTube to advance their own businesses — a topic about which their briefs are virtually silent.”

More excerpts and analysis at The Hollywood Reporter.

Amazon Launches Android App Store, Draws Trademark Suit from Apple

Amazon.com looks to lure Android device users away from Google’s Android Market with daily price promotions and “test drive” previews of apps. As TechCrunch reports, Amazon retains control over app pricing, unlike Android Market or Apple’s App Store (where developers set prices). The pricing policy will enable the retailer to offer popular paid apps, such as Rovio’s Angry Birds, for free under a “free app of the day” promotion.

Amazon will have to defend its use of the term “App Store” before a California federal court, with Apple filing a trademark infringement suit against the retailer late last week (via Bloomberg). Apple has received approval for its own “App Store” trademark from the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, but Microsoft has filed an opposition to the registration.

Report: Apple Looks to Lockers for Digital Music

Apple’s long-anticipated complement to its iTunes digital music store will not be a stand-alone subscription streaming service like Spotify, but rather a cloud-based rights locker for iTunes customers to access their music purchases from any Apple device, the Financial Times reports.

The service could debut as early as this summer, the paper reports. Meanwhile, Spotify is still reportedly negotiating with major record labels to launch a U.S. version of its European subscription music service. Google also is fixing to enter the space with a cloud-based locker service of its own.

More at Ars Technica, which spotted the FT report late last week.

Google Opens Web-Based Android Market; In-App Purchase Support Coming Soon

Google brought its Android Market app store to the Web today, while pledging to support in-app purchasing capabilities in apps by the end of the first quarter (via Engadget). The new Android Market storefront boasts “over-the-air” transfers: a user can browse and purchase apps from any Internet connection, and the store sends the purchases wirelessly to the user’s specified device.

Apple Rejects Sony E-Reader App: Report

As digital commerce continues to heat up, Apple is now requiring retail app developers to offer an in-app purchasing option for content such as e-books, the New York Times reports.

The new requirement comes to light following Apple’s rejection of a Sony iPhone app that would have let users purchase and read e-books from Sony’s Reader Store.

Sony’s app would have operated like Amazon’s Kindle app for the iPhone and iPad, which opens a browser window to enable new content purchases over the Web. Under Apple’s new requirement, the developers must offer users an in-app purchase option as well — with such purchases subject to a 30% revenue cut for Apple.

The news follows a similar rift in January between Google’s Android market and social game site Kongregate.

Google Filters File-Sharing Terms from Searches

Google’s search engine has stopped suggesting certain technologies and sites popular with file-sharers, in an apparent step from the search company to help curb copyright infringement.

Typing “torrent,” “megaupload” or “rapidshare” into Google no longer prompts “instant” suggestions or auto-completions of the terms, although full-word searches still produce accurate results. At least as of Thursday, the Google engine still auto-completes searches for sites such as The Pirate Bay, Isohunt and Mediafire (as originally reported by TorrentFreak).

The move follows Google’s pledge to tighten its anti-infringement controls in December. But representatives of companies affected by the measure tell TorrentFreak that Google overreaches in its new filtering scheme, impeding the discovery and legitimate use of file-sharing services.

comScore: Vevo Tops 50 Million Viewers One Year After Launch

Vevo, the ad-supported music video streaming service, steadily grew its audience in 2010, topping 50.6 million viewers for the month of December alone, according to data released by comScore.

Much of the Vevo traffic still hails from YouTube, where the major-label-backed service launched in December 2009.

YouTube and other Google-owned sites, as usual, collectively rank as the top online video content property for December 2010 with 144.8 million unique viewers, comScore says. The average time Internet users spent watching videos on Google sites in December topped 274 minutes, or 4.6 hours.

More online video data from comScore here.

Google Pulls Game ‘Arcade’ App from Android Market

A dispute between Google and social gaming site Kongregate reveals how the lines of competition continue to be staked out between app retailers and both aggregators and developers of digital content.

Hours after Kongregate launched an “Arcade” app on Google’s Android Market yesterday, Google removed the app from its digital storefront, reportedly citing violation of the mobile app store’s terms of service.

Kongregate CEO Jim Greer tells Joystiq that Google deemed the free Kongregate Arcade app — through which users can play and download some 300 Flash games from Kongregate’s mobile site — to be an app store in itself, placing it in competition with the Android Market.

But the Arcade app, Greer argues, is “all essentially cached content delivered in a browser, which to me is just bizarre that that would be considered an ‘app store.’ It’s just browser-based content.”

Kongregate is a unit of videogame retailer GameStop, which does not market game apps online, but does offer downloadable content for console game systems and PCs.

The flap could hold ramifications on other retailers that are planning to sell Android apps, such as Amazon (more at GigaOm). For Kongregate, the publicity over Google’s removal may work in its favor, MocoNews points out. The Arcade app is now available at upstart app store GetJar, which has seen heavy traffic for other popular game apps such as Angry Birds (1.5 million downloads from GetJar to date).

As a social site, Kongregate remains relatively small: at last check, its homepage’s real-time ticker claimed some 36,675 users were online playing games.

Online Video Exec: Standards War Brewing in ’11

Jeremy Allaire, chief executive at online video platform Brightcove, says competition between rival standards will be a key factor to watch in the evolution of online and mobile video next year (via TechCrunch). Yet this standards war — which actually will drive more video onto more devices, Allaire says — may not be the type packaged home entertainment marketers are used to.

“Several alternative stacks are emerging for encrypting / securing and then, in turn, delivering video in a high-quality and reliable manner to all platforms and devices,” Allaire says. The battle between Apple and Adobe is already underway. “And now,” Allaire notes,  “Google will get in the mix with Widevine’s technology…We should expect that, like with On2’s video codecs which were open-sourced as the WebM video standard, Google will open source and freely distribute the Widevine technology, as well as bundle it as a standard part of the infrastructure in Chrome, Chrome OS and Android browsers and operating systems.”

Google to Acquire DRM Provider Widevine

Adding to its digital video delivery operations, Google is acquiring Widevine, a provider of digital rights management and video optimization tools, for an undisclosed sum.

“By forging partnerships across the entire ecosystem, Widevine has made on demand services more efficient and secure for media companies, and ultimately more available and convenient for users,” says Mario Queiroz, Google’s VP of Product Management, in a company blog post. “We are committed to maintaining Widevine’s agreements and will provide direct, quality support for their existing and future clients—and we plan to build upon Widevine’s technology to enhance both their products and our own.”

Widevine CEO Brian Baker adds that the company will continue to market video optimization and content protection solutions. “We are excited to have access to Google’s vast resources,” he says, “as we continue to improve our products, support our customers, and meet the future needs of consumers, content owners, service providers and device manufacturers.”

Google to Tighten Anti-Infringement Controls

Some content owners have long perceived Google to be slow in responding to copyright violations on its sites and services; Viacom continues to allege that Google’s YouTube has profited from the infringements of its users. While standing behind the safe-harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Google today said that it is planning strengthen its copyright protection program with several modifications over the next several months.

Topping the list of changes, says Google General Counsel Kent Walker, is an initiative to “act on reliable copyright takedown requests within 24 hours.

“We will build tools to improve the submission process to make it easier for rightsholders to submit DMCA takedown requests for Google products (starting with Blogger and web Search),” Walker says in a company blog post. “And for copyright owners who use the tools responsibly, we’ll reduce our average response time to 24 hours or less. At the same time, we’ll improve our ‘counter-notice’ tools for those who believe their content was wrongly removed and enable public searching of takedown requests.”

Additionally, Walker notes:

“We will prevent terms that are closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete. While it’s hard to know for sure when search terms are being used to find infringing content, we’ll do our best to prevent Autocomplete from displaying the terms most frequently used for that purpose.

“We will improve our AdSense anti-piracy review. We have always prohibited the use of our AdSense program on web pages that provide infringing materials. Building on our existing DMCA takedown procedures, we will be working with rightsholders to identify, and, when appropriate, expel violators from the AdSense program.

“We will experiment to make authorized preview content more readily accessible in search results. Not surprisingly, we’re big fans of making authorized content more accessible on the Internet. Most users want to access legitimate content and are interested in sites that make that content available to them (even if only on a preview basis). We’ll be looking at ways to make this content easier to index and find.”

More on the news at CNET.

Viacom Blocks Full-Episode Access on Google TV

Viacom has joined ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC in blocking Google TV devices from accessing streams of full-length TV show episodes from its network websites (such as ComedyCentral.com and Nick.com). “We continue to evaluate Google TV to identify opportunities where it may make sense to optimize our Web content for the platform,” a company spokesperson tells paidContent. (The site questions whether a Web browser, which is essentially what Google TV is, truly represents a bona fide distribution “platform” just because it pulls content for television screens instead of PC monitors or smartphones.)

Google still has some TV network support, but it is currently touting websites such as CBS-owned CNET and PBS Kids as the “Best of Google TV” in a new promotion for the service.

More on how the major networks are thought to be blocking Google TV devices at The Washington Post.

Google Assigns YouTube Team to Bring Broadcasters Around: Report

While ABC, CBS, and NBC continue to block Google TV devices from accessing Internet streams of their shows, Google is hoping a newly formed executive team at its YouTube unit can convince the broadcasters of the business model’s potential (via the San Francisco Chronicle).

Two YouTube executives — Robert Kyncl, former VP of content acquisition for Netflix, and Dean Gilbert, the former VP of product management for Google TV — are charged with brokering new content deals with broadcasters and others. As NewTeeVee notes, the executives may have a difficult time overcoming broadcaster resistance without opening up Google’s checkbook.

Paid Search: Google Floats Fees for Helping Labels To Find Pirate Links

In response to music industry requests for greater help in identifying links to unauthorized files, Google has offered to pitch in — for a fee, CNET reports.

The tech news site points to a confirmed recent exchange between the search giant and representatives from the RIAA and IFPI, in which Google said trade group members could utilize its “site search” service to uncover pirated material at a rate of $5 per 1,000 queries. That rate could amount to several millions of dollars per year for labels, CNET quotes a music industry source as saying.

Under federal law, Google must remove (for free) search results that link to infringing files, upon specific requests from copyright owners. But rightsholders bear the responsibility of discovering the links.

The paid service could be just another bargaining chip with labels as Google reportedly continues to mull the launch of its own digital music store.

Facebook Captures No. 2 Slot In Online Video Rankings

As usual, Google sites (viz. YouTube) top comScore’s latest monthly online video rankings, garnering 146.3 million unique viewers in August 2010. But Facebook.com jumped one position in the research firm’s chart, edging Yahoo! sites to capture the No. 2 spot with 58.6 million viewers and 243 million viewing sessions during the month (via PR Newswire).

Other comScore findings from August include:

- More than 85% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

- The duration of the average online content video was 4.8 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.

- Video ads accounted for 10.7% of all videos viewed and 1% of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Google’s Pitch To Labels: A Year Of Music Access For $25 Subscription

Under Google’s proposed music service, customers would be able to pay $25 for access to songs via Web and mobile apps, anonymous industry sources tell Billboard. The company also would sell music downloads a la carte. Execs say that the terms of the service are bound to change from what Google is pitching — and there still are no details on when (or in what territories) the service would launch.

YouTube Tests Live Streaming Service

YouTube concludes this afternoon a second day of live-streaming tests with four content partners — Howcast, Next New Networks, Rocketboom, and Young Hollywood — as it mulls a broader rollout of the service.

YouTube says in a blog post that the new platform integrates live streaming directly into the content providers’ YouTube channels; all the broadcasters need is a webcam or external camera. The trial programs also are testing a “live comments” feature for viewers.

YouTube’s test comes on the heels of a reported surge in the American live streaming audience across websites such as Justin.TV, Livestream and Ustream. Research firm comScore recently reported that time spent on such sites has grown by 648% over the past year, to 1.4 billion minutes.

Research: Facebook, Twitter Gain On Google as Video Referral Sources

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of the traffic from third-party sites to video sources comes from Google, with Facebook claiming a 4.3% share and Twitter just 1.2%, according to a second-quarter report on Web video trends by Brightcove and video analytics firm TubeMogul (via Online Media Daily). But video referral traffic from the social networks is surging. Such traffic on Facebook is growing at an average monthly rate of 48%, while Twitter is growing at a rate of 38.7% — compared to Google’s 15.5% monthly growth rate.

At the current rates, Facebook will surpass Yahoo to be second only to Google in online video referral traffic within the year, the report says.

Facebook recently edged Google in another online metric — time spent on the site — for the first time ever, according to comScore (via Silicon Alley Insider). In August, Facebook users in the U.S. spent in excess of 40 billion minutes on the site; Google users fell just shy of the 40-billion-minute mark for the month.

Google Pitches YouTube Movie Streaming To Studios: Report

Google is in talks with major studios to launch a paid movie streaming service on YouTube by the end of the year, according to the Financial Times. Streaming movies would cost about $5, and titles would be available on the same day as their release on DVD and other Internet video-on-demand channels, according to the Financial Times’ unnamed sources.

YouTube has long viewed itself as a potential partner with studios not just for film advertising and promotion, but digital distribution as well. In January, YouTube tested $3.99 streaming movie rentals of five independent films in a campaign with the Sundance Film Festival.

RIAA Presses For Anti-Piracy Procedures In Google-Verizon Proposal

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and 12 other music industry trade groups have sent an open letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, seeking more information on how the company’s joint proposal with Verizon for an open-Internet framework would accommodate digital content protection efforts.

“The music community we represent believes it is vital that any Internet policy initiative permit and encourage ISPs and other intermediaries to take measures to deter unlawful activity such as copyright infringement and child pornography,” the letter reads (via Digital Media Wire). The letter also urges for the tech companies to honor a distinction between “lawful and unlawful activity” online.

Backstory and analysis at Ars Technica.

Yahoo Interested In ‘Considerable’ Hulu Stake, Says Analyst

The second-most-popular search service would consider acquiring a stake in Hulu if the online video site goes public, says Jordan Rohan, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus (via Bloomberg). For Yahoo, ownership in Hulu would shore up its position in digital entertainment as well as raise its profile among advertisers. Hulu’s estimated $200 million in revenue this year “implies superior monetization” compared with Google’s YouTube video site, Rohan adds.

In related news, “Modern Family” producer Steve Levitan vocalized his previously reported anti-Hulu stance on Twitter earlier this week (via Forbes). “Some estimate Hulu IPO could bring in $2Bil,” Levitan posted Aug. 18. “What will the content providers get? Zero. What is Hulu without content? An empty jukebox.”

Levitan’s position has not gained much traction in Hollywood’s C-suites; “Modern Family” remains one of Hulu’s most popular shows. But Wall Street reacted with more caution than enthusiasm to the broadcaster-owned video site’s prospective IPO.

Time Warner Cable’s Britt: New Net Neutrality Regulations Would Risk ‘Unintended Consequences’

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Time Warner Cable chief executive Glenn Britt says that new regulations for Internet service providers could carry “unintended consequences” if they wind up being outmoded by the ever-competitive broadband marketplace.

On the Google-Verizon policy proposal, which calls for an exception to open-Internet principles for new services and mobile/wireless networks, Britt offers: “Virtual private networks already exist. [Critics of the Google-Verizon proposal] are ignoring the fact that these services have been in place for many years. If there were a prohibition against that, then corporations couldn’t do business the way they do it today internally. If IBM wants to pay me to lay a cable from one place to another using Internet technology, should that be prohibited?”

Google Defends Net Neutrality Proposal

In proposing that the wireless broadband space remain free from government net neutrality regulations, Google acknowledges that it has shifted from its previous position. However, it’s all “in the spirit of compromise,” the company says in a follow-up corporate post.

Google’s chief Washington counsel, Richard Whitt, cites three factors driving the company’s strategic shift. “First,” he says, “the wireless market is more competitive than the wireline market, given that consumers typically have more than just two providers to choose from. Second, because wireless networks employ airwaves, rather than wires, and share constrained capacity among many users, these carriers need to manage their networks more actively. Third, network and device openness is now beginning to take off as a significant business model in this space.”

More on Google’s previous stance — and on why it wants the proposal considered by Congress instead of the Federal Communications Commission — at Ars Technica.

Media Companies Respond To Google-Verizon’s Net Neutrality Proposal

Google and Verizon are receiving pushback from many media companies, but praise from some, on their proposal to keep mobile networks and the development of “new entertainment and gaming options” (among other services) outside the government’s net neutrality framework.

Among those criticizing the proposal is Facebook, which advocates the application of open Internet rules to mobile networks (via the Wall Street Journal). IAC chief Barry Diller, meanwhile, called the proposal a “sham,” according to the New York Times.

Yet some agree with the proposal’s call for the government to allow broadband providers room to develop new products, such as a premium tier for content access. Danny Stein, the chairman of eMusic, tells the New York Times that while Internet access should remain open and neutral, “that doesn’t mean there can’t be premium options to appeal to some amazing consumer experience outside of the garden of net neutrality.”

Google-Verizon: Proposal Critics Say Companies Want Loophole For ‘New Entertainment Options’

“We want the broadband infrastructure to be a platform for innovation,” the chief executives of Google and Verizon state in a joint proposal, announced yesterday, for how the U.S. government should regulate Internet services. To this end, the two companies press for broadband providers’ right to develop “new entertainment and gaming options,” among other new products, that are separate from traditional Internet access and hence not subject to the same government regulations.

Google and Verizon stress that under their proposal, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would monitor the development of these new online services, to ensure that “they don’t interfere with the continued development of Internet access.”

But the proposal has been met with outcry from media watchdog groups, along with a terse response from the FCC.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, SVP and policy director at advocacy group Media Access Project, sees in the new-services proposal potential for a loophole that “may make some services unaffordable for consumers and access to those services unavailable to new start-ups” (in an interview with the New York Times).

The FCC, for its part, bridles at the corporations’ attempt to redefine the government’s role in net neutrality.

“Some will claim this announcement moves the discussion forward. That’s one of its many problems,” FCC Commissioner Michael Copps says in a statement (.pdf). “It is time to move a decision forward — a decision to reassert FCC authority over broadband telecommunications, to guarantee an open Internet now and forever.”

Warner’s Digital Music Biz Slows; Bronfman Optimistic About ‘Mobile Space’

As Warner Music Group reported a loss for its sixth consecutive quarter, the company said its digital business — which now accounts for 27% of total revenue — grew by just 2% (via WSJ). But CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. says he is optimistic about the prospects of music services for mobile/wireless devices — a space that Google and other “major corporations” might enter over the next 12 to 18 months. All Things Digital and paidContent have the close read on Bronfman’s earnings-call comments.

Setback For Spotify’s U.S. Prospects

Spotify, the European streaming music provider, is approaching its licensing negotiations with U.S. labels entirely anew, in efforts to launch some version of its proposed “freemium” service Stateside before the end of the year, according to Billboard. The music trade magazine’s sources say negotiations “have reverted back to square one.”

Hailed as a pioneering model for digital music distribution, Spotify’s proposed mix of free ad-supported streams and paid subscriptions threatens to be a non-starter with labels in the U.S. —  even as the likes of Apple and Google are rumored to be hashing out details with labels for their own streaming music services.

More analysis at All Things Digital, which raises the question of whether all four major label groups, or just some of them, are holding up the Spotify launch.

Google Adds Music Licensing Counsel

With its hiring of music licensing attorney Elizabeth Moody, Google may be taking another step toward the development of its own digital music service, Billboard reports. Moody has worked as an associate at the law firm Davis Shapiro Lewit & Hayes, which according to Billboard has represented MySpace and other services in their licensing negotiations with labels.

Report: Google Getting Into Games With Zynga Investment

TechCrunch reported this past weekend that Google has “quietly” invested between $100 million and $200 million in Zynga, the creator of FarmVille and other social network games, as it plots new entertainment offerings. According to the report, Zynga games will be the “cornerstone” of a Google Games launch this fall. Speculation abounds on everything from how Google’s entry could alter the online/social gaming space, to why exactly so many people find these games so addictive.

MTV Selling Ads On YouTube, As Parent Companies’ Court Battle Continues

While Viacom prepares to appeal a federal court’s dismissal of its infringement suit against Google, Viacom unit MTV Networks is preparing to sell digital ads for Warner Music Group on the label’s YouTube channels, as part of a multi-year partnership between the digital music companies. As All Things Digital points out, there is nary a mention of Google or YouTube in the companies’ press release — the ad sales agreement spans a range of websites, including MTV’s own, as well as mobile apps. But YouTube likely figures heavily into the deal as Warner Music’s top traffic generator.

Watershed Moments In Internet History: Mark Your Calendars. Google Won.

Teradata’s Colleen Quinn on the recent federal court decision in Viacom v. Google: with YouTube found to have been acting within the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions, the verdict effectively places significant operational burdens on Viacom and other content owners. Read the blog post here.

Court: YouTube Protected By DMCA’s Safe-Harbor Provision

YouTube is tooting its virtual vuvuzela after a federal court in New York dismissed Viacom’s $1 billion infringement claim against Google yesterday. The decision, as USA Today reports, turns on the safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: “mere knowledge of the prevalence of (copyright violations) in general is not enough” to make YouTube liable for unauthorized “Daily Show” clips. Viacom plans to appeal the ruling. By USA Today

EFF Attorney Heading To Google: Report

Fred von Lohmann, a longtime advocate for digital rights, is leaving the Electronic Frontier Foundation to join Google as the company’s senior copyright counsel, according to CNET. The attorney defended Grokster in the landmark MGM v. Grokster case, decided by the Supreme Court in 2005.

Google Prepping Music Service: Reports

The search engine could launch a Web-based service for music streams and downloads as early as this fall, in efforts to supply entertainment content to Android phone users. But Google’s entry into content distribution would hold implications beyond the mobile space. CNET reports on what the move would mean for Apple’s iTunes as well as music labels.

Building Net Neutrality Consensus Outside The Beltway

Rival tech giants including AT&T, Comcast, Google, Microsoft, and Verizon announced earlier this week that they are joining together under the newly formed Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) to “develop consensus on broadband network management practices or other related technical issues that can affect users’ Internet experience.” Chairing the group is a former chief technologist of the Federal Communications Commission. CNET reports that the formation of the group signals a political détente between the companies over net neutrality, as well as a bypassing of Washington regulators. By CNET

Video Patent Holders Mull Response To Google-Backed Codec

Weeks after Google’s announcement of an initiative to bring more streaming video to the Web using an putatively open-source video codec, the MPEG LA says its members may hold patents on the “VP8” technology. As CNET reports, companies may be reluctant to adopt VP8 if they have to pay royalties on it. By CNET

Viacom, YouTube Trade Jabs Over Copyright Infringement

USA Today teases out some choice exchanges between Viacom and Google from newly unsealed court filings in the entertainment company’s $1 billion lawsuit against the video site. Viacom alleges YouTube consciously built its site traffic on massive-scale copyright infringement. Google responds that Viacom studios themselves, including Comedy Central and Paramount, surreptitiously posted video clips to YouTube to generate viral marketing buzz. By USA Today

Google Seeks TV Foothold With Intel, Sony

Google and Intel have teamed with Sony to develop a platform called Google TV to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes. The move is an effort by Google and Intel to extend their dominance of computing to television, an arena where they have little sway. For Sony, which has struggled to retain a pricing and technological advantage in the competitive TV hardware market, the partnership is an effort to get a leg up on competitors. By The New York Times

Google’s Music Strategy: Past, Present And Future

The door is wide open for Google to poach iTunes users with a cloud-based music service, argues Wired’s Eliot Van Buskirk. Among the ways that Google can rise to unseat the digital music incumbent: align itself with consumer electronics manufacturers to bring the service into living rooms, and continue leveraging its music search functionality. By Wired

Is Google Preparing To Challenge iTunes In The Cloud?

As the four biggest record companies wait to hear more about a proposed iTunes cloud music service, word comes now that Google has kicked the tires on a start-up specializing in cloud media. Google has showed interest in possibly acquiring Los Angeles-based Catch Media, a company that intends to help make it simple for consumers to enjoy their digital movies, music, and books across numerous different hardware and service platforms, according to sources with knowledge of the negotiations. By CNET

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