They sure look the same to me. When I type in a name of a movie to see if there is a DVD on amazon yet, often Google, YouTube's owner, offers to show me the version someone has uploaded to their servers. Then, Google/YouTube makes revenue from showing me ads if I or anyone chooses to go to that page.

It's absurd to claim YouTube is not about unlicensed content. The vast majority of their streamed content was unlicensed for the first few years they were up. To deny this is to deny history. It took them a long time to catch hold for video blogging, a lot of which had to wait on people having cameras included with their laptops before it took off. But even now, the unlicensed content is as strong as ever, they just have more licensed content on top of it.

What you are saying is incorrect.

YouTube has deals with major content producers (music labels, movie studios, etc.) which work in the following way: whenever we discover a video that infringes their copyright, they can choose to either block it, monetize it or track it. What blocking means is quite obvious; monetizing means that we put ads in front of the video and share the revenue; tracking means no ads are shown, but the owner can access analytics about the video (how often it is uploaded, how many people watch it, where from, and so on). You can read more about it here: [1].

As you may imagine, this system changes the incentives for copyright owners. When they decide to block some video, all they achieve is making some YouTube uploader unhappy. If they decide to monetize, on the other hand, they start making money from the upload, and the clip becomes, effectively, a marketing tool for their product. If you, say, watch clips from a TV series on YouTube, that may be a signal that you like the series and will eventually watch it on TV or iTunes. What is more, uploaders try to select clips they find interesting and think other people would like to watch – so this in some way turns YouTube into crowdsourced advertising.

(Disclaimer: I work as a programmer at Google and I work on YouTube.)

[1] http://www.youtube.com/t/contentid

Google purchased YouTube and THEN entered into those content deals. Before that, it was very touch and go for YouTube-- they couldn't afford their bandwidth, let alone licensing deals, and many commenters said that Google was stupid to take on YouTube's copyright liability.

Yes, thank you, exactly. There were tons of articles at the time about YouTube's blatant disregard for the law and their wanton illegal activity, and the obviously weren't troubled by it. They managed to get a huge amount of investment and then had their lawyers make deals and settlements with content owners. This is all a matter of public record and has been well covered in the media. The gentleman claiming to work for Google is certainly aware of the history so his misrepresenting it now certainly looks like a bad faith attempt to whitewash their past behavior. This is not an aberration for Google either, their Google Books scanning was in egregious violation of copyright and they certainly knew it and the so-called Google Books settlement was nothing more than a giant corporation making a play to steal billions of dollars worth of intellectual property they had no right to. Monetizing of IP they don't own is most of Google's business model. Google employees who make their living off Google's activities who are critical of this lady's web service are certainly being hypocritical and outrageous.

edit: Downvote all you want, it doesn't change history or facts, much as you may want it to.

Note the difference between YOUtube and this website. YouTube wasn't explicitly designed from the ground up to be based off of copyright infringing works. This site on the other hand was. That is the big difference.

This system was put in place years after YouTube launched. YouTube was propelled to popularity without any automatic detection systems in place. Your distinction is disingenuous or you are ignorant of the history of your own employer.