From Techdirt…

Remember the rumor, kicked off by Mark Cuban, that Google was holding back $500 million from YouTube in escrow to deal with potential copyright infringement lawsuits? Yes, the same claim that Google CEO Eric Schmidt clearly denied was true last week. Well, it seems that when he called it false, it appears he only meant the number, not the concept. Today it came out that Google has actually put aside a little over $200 million in an escrow account, almost exactly as the original email Mark Cuban posted described. It’s to handle potential legal costs associated with copyright lawsuits. While it’s not nearly as much of the deal as originally suggested, it still is a significant chunk. There’s a second interesting tidbit in the article as well. While some had suggested that YouTube actually has been profitable, apparently, the company was so hard up for money, it needed to borrow $15 million between the time the deal was announced just over a month ago and its closing of the deal yesterday.