By BRIAN STELTER

It is about to become a little more difficult to watch music videos by Madonna, Metallica and Kid Rock.

Unable to reach new licensing terms, the Warner Music Group has demanded that thousands of its videos be removed from YouTube, which is owned by Google. Warner Music’s videos, the source of a billion views on YouTube, gradually began disappearing from the site on Saturday, although many remained online Sunday evening.

Music video streams may be a new battleground between Google, which wants to expand its video advertising business, and media companies, which expect to be fully compensated for their online content.

Ed Pilkington

The rising stars of YouTube.
By Claudine Beaumont

YouTube rising star: SimonsCat is one of the most successful animation outfits on YouTube

Los Angeles DJ Jesse ‘BoyToy’ Lozano does a live broadcast at 35,000 feet above San Francisco
©AFP/Virgin America - Bob Riha, Jr.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - YouTube has broadcast its first live event, an extravaganza which was part concert and part variety show and which drew comments from viewers ranging from “AWESOME!” to “train wreck.”

The popular video-sharing Internet site streamed a two-hour live broadcast at youtube.com/live featuring well- to lesser-known singers, dancers and video bloggers who became online celebrities through YouTube.

By BRAD STONE and BROOKS BARNES

SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube is by far the world’s biggest stage for online video. But in some ways Hulu is stealing the show.

Films from MGM, like “The Magnificent Seven” will be posted on YouTube under a new agreement.

Many Hollywood executives prefer to use Hulu owned by NBC and Fox.

With critical plaudits and advertising dollars flowing to Hulu, the popular online hub for television shows and feature films, YouTube finds itself in the unanticipated position of playing catch-up.

10/10/2008 02h00

A web page of www.youtube.com
©AFP/File - Samantha Sin

Computer security specialists warn that hackers are using fake YouTube pages to trick people
©AFP/File - Nicholas Kamm

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Computer security specialists warn that hackers are using fake YouTube pages to trick people into opening their machines to diabolical software.

A deceptive YouTube attack evolving as it spreads on the Internet is part of a growing trend of hackers to prowl popular online social networking communities in which people trustingly share web links and mini-programs.