"The Google-YouTube deal has to feel a little like the 1990’s, but it isn’t."

“If you knew then what you know now and you had the chance to acquire Amazon or eBay — which weren’t making any money either — you would have bought them.”

Is YouTube worth $1.65 billion? How do you make money with it? Embed ads in the videos? (That's one idea. Would you still watch?) And how do you avoid all the lawsuits waiting to happen? (Deals with the entertainment industry? But you can't reach all the copyright holders, can you? And where does the money come from?)

Phil Leigh, the president of Inside Digital Media, said the new arrangements represented “a strong endorsement that the major media companies are going to see YouTube as a legitimate business partner.”

Mr. Leigh said that also suggested a rethinking of the approach the companies took to Napster. “It shows that very important, erstwhile reluctant media companies have got religion,” he said.