While the deal concerning the aquisition of YouTube by Google (GOOG) will get all the press for awhile, the real story is what else happened connected directly to the deal.
The first major thing was the agreement between Universal Music Group and YouTube for the distribution of its products. YouTube users will get the opportunity to use songs from Universal's music catalog and put them into their own videos. This was a bigger deal than realized as Universal was the key opponent and potential litigater to the company that was going to buy it. This is huge!
Second, Google made distribution deals today with two other of the top music labels by signing an agreement with Sony BMG and Warner Music Group to offer their music videos online.
These are important from the legal aspect of the situation, but there is something far more significant underlying it all: the deal forced the major music companies to sign! That is more important than Google getting YouTube. What if YouTube folds in a year? For Google it won't matter. They now have the distribution rights to the majority of music videos in the world. They could put anything up to replace it; and in a 
variety of ways. They may do that even with owning YouTube.
This may sound odd to some of you, but the $1.65 billion for YouTube was worth the price of the distribution deal with the major music companies. YouTube is just some change thrown in with it.
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