Internet, Online Video | featured news

YouTube and Paramount Pictures have reached a deal to make nearly 500 films available to rent online, even while their parent companies continue to feud over a $1 billion lawsuit.

Uganda's government has taken to the Internet to correct a "false impression" about the country it says was created by a U.S. celebrity-backed online campaign to hunt down fugitive warlord Joseph Kony.

If Joseph Kony lived in relative anonymity before this week, he's found Internet stardom now. A video about the atrocities carried out by Kony's Lord's Resistance Army is rocketing into viral video territory and is racking up millions of page views seemingly by the hour.

In the indictment filed in a New Zealand court earlier this month, the U.S. Justice Department says Kim DotCom oversaw an attempt to copy all of YouTube's videos and tried to inform on rivals.

It appears that YouTube is getting a facelift. And Google+ might be a big part of the new look. Tech blog the Next Web was one of several whose staffers caught a glimpse of a redesigned interface on the massively popular video-sharing site.

YouTube may get into the business of producing original content. The video giant, owned by Google, is reportedly preparing to announce several partnerships with media companies and personalities to produce content, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The news is surprising because for a long while now this has been a lousy economic climate to do any initial public offering.

After months of being courted by technology giants and TV signal providers, online video service Hulu is no longer for sale, its media company owners said Thursday. The Walt Disney Co., News Corp., Comcast Corp. and Providence Equity Partners had been shopping the site since June after receiving an unsolicited takeover offer.

The auction of online video website Hulu LLC is chugging along, with financial advisers working to compare the various offers for the company after last week's latest bidding deadline.

Amazon.com said it struck a deal with Fox to offer online video-streaming of the company's movies and television shows.