Gadgetory

youtube is close to securing a 1 billion dollar buyout a video game streaming startup twitch letting people watch others play Vince okay a little at sea on this one make no mistake it could be the best billion dollars it ever spends I'm adrianne jeffries and this is 90 seconds on the verge twitch launched in 2011 is a subsidiary of justin.tv since then it has grown at a phenomenal rate by the end of 2013 there were 45 million unique viewers watching a total of over 200 million hours per month it even surpasses Hulu and Facebook and peak internet traffic but twitch admits that it's gotten to the point where it quote can't keep up with the growth that's where Google comes in YouTube has the technology and infrastructure to help twitch scale where twitch shines and where YouTube absolutely doesn't is a venerable live streaming community last year a league of legends event attracted 32 million viewers with 8.5 million watching simultaneously Google's efforts at turning YouTube into a live-streaming destination have been fruitless so far highlighted by the universally maligned YouTube Music Awards that's the benefit for both companies so what's the catch top of the list is copyright many of the prominent twitch streamers play their games against a background of unlicensed music small companies with limited budgets aren't particularly attractive for infringement claims but what happens when it's backed by YouTube's deep pockets just ask Viacom which sued the company for a billion dollars after it was bought by google in 2006 it just settled in March for more on twitch check out the verge coming up twitch plays Pokemon put pokemon fights back and there's blood on the road to viridian city