YouTube Edging Closer to Hollywood

YouTube's latest move to add Sony as a partner highlights the delicate balance it's trying to strike between Hollywood and its own roots in "homegrown video," writes Chris Snyder in Wired. The deals with Sony and others authorize the site—under pressure to curb unauthorized uploads—to show full-length movies and thousands of TV episodes in a new section of the site dubbed YouTube Shows.

YouTube—which denies it plans to abandon its user-submitted video roots— will insert ads in the middle using new technology called Google TV Ads Online. YouTube isn't charging fees for premium content, although execs haven't ruled out doing so in future. "We do expect over time to see micropayments and other forms of subscription models coming," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt .
(More YouTube stories.)