techdirt writes "Viacom employee Jon Stewart recently announced that he believes his bosses are making a mistake in taking Viacom content off of YouTube. Today, NBC employee and Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels has stated he can't understand NBC's position on YouTube. The interview with Michaels is especially interesting, because it was a Saturday Night Live clip of the infamous 'Lazy Sunday' music video that is often credited with putting YouTube on the map. At the same time, however, almost everyone admitted that it did wonders in revitalizing SNL's reputation (as well as boosting Andy Samberg's reputation to new heights). Yet, NBC's lawyers shot it down, limiting the benefit to SNL. It appears that Michaels understands that, and says he wishes they could put more of the show on YouTube."

marvinalone writes "The New York Times reports that Google has purchased DoubleClick. That seems to be the conclusion to the speculation we've talked about earlier. From the article: 'Google reached an agreement today to acquire DoubleClick, the online advertising company, from two private equity firms for $3.1 billion in cash, the companies announced, an amount that was almost double the $1.65 billion in stock that Google paid for YouTube late last year.'"

1sockchuck writes "Just days after Google announced that it may build a huge data center in the state, Oklahoma's governor has signed a bill into law that will effectively exempt the largest customers of municipal power companies from public disclosure of how much power they are using. Officials of the state's power industry say the measure is not a 'Google Law' but was sought 'on behalf of large-volume electric users that might be considering a move to Oklahoma.' Others acknowledge that data center operators were among those seeking the law, apparently arguing that the details of their enormous power usage are a trade secret. Google recently acquired 800 acres in Pryor, Oklahoma for possible development as a data center, and is reportedly seeking up to 15 megawatts of power for the facility."

Fishing Expedition writes in with a story in Ars reporting that the RIAA has decided to appeal a judge's decision to award attorneys' fees to defendant Debbie Foster in Capitol Records v. Foster. If the award stands, the RIAA could find itself in trouble in numerous other cases, and they know it. Their real fear, more than the attorneys' fees, is the judge's finding that the RIAA's arguments for contributory and vicarious infringement claims in cases like this one are not viable.