YouTube’s young founders may have been the biggest beneficiaries of last week’s $1.65 billion deal with Google, but they have some unexpected bedfellows–old-line media companies that had been considered YouTube’s biggest legal threat.
Three of the four major music companies–Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony and Bertelsmann’s jointly owned Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and the Warner Music Group–each quietly negotiated to take small stakes in YouTube as part of video- and music-licensing deals they struck shortly before the sale, people involved in the talks said Wednesday. The music companies collectively stand to receive as much as $50 million from these arrangements, these people said.