YouTube has erased nearly 30,000 videos as a result of Japanese companies claiming copyright infringement. I’ve previously argued that a detailed fair use policy for video will be necessary in the coming years.

What struck me when I read this story, however, is the realization that Google bought YouTube right before these complaints started hitting the news. It’s very possible that the media started covering YouTube more once Google bought it, or that Google paid more attention to the allegations than the previous owner did.

Regardless — and I’m no business experts — the question remains, why buy a company when its entire concept might be illegal and some are predicting its popularity will wane? It would be like buying a Betamax videocassette player in 1985: The format is already sliding, and it just might crash next year. It seems obvious to me that the better decision would have been to wait a bit until the lawsuits had been sorted out.

I can think of a few reasons Google might have behaved this way. One is that, as the company is invested (through Google Video and the search caches) in keeping copyright protections minimal, it wanted to help YouTube out of its problem. The second is that it planned to simply remove material or strike deals when necessary and still thought the site would be profitable. The third is that it realized it was taking a significant risk but was worried that another company would buy YouTube first if it didn’t act.

Depending on how this all goes, the purchase could be a major success or a dismal failure.

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.