Paramount Pictures To Bring YouTube 500 More Rental films

Name the last time you headed YouTube's way and couldn't find a thing worth watching.

If such a moment were possible before, it won't be for very long. Though YouTube and Paramount Pictures' respective parent companies bicker over litigation worth over $1 billion, the two companies have reached an agreement that will bring YouTube almost 500 films to YouTube's rental library, the Associated Press reports.

With Paramount becoming the fifth major studio alongside Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., the Walt Disney Co., NBC Universal and multiple independent studios among the site's $2-4 streaming rental library, only 20th Century Fox hasn't handed YouTube their vault keys. The deal not only brings the Paramount films to YouTube's movie-rental service, but also YouTube parent Google Inc.'s Google Play service. Google/YouTube's near 9,000-film library competes with the likes of Apple's iTunes store, Amazon, Netflix and Hulu vying for the growing streaming video audience seeking cable television and DVD/Blu-ray rental alternatives.

Among other films, the Paramount deal brings Google and YouTube such favorites as 2011's Oscar-winning fantasy "Hugo", Martin Scorsese's legendary "The Godfather" trilogy and the multi-billion-grossing Michael Bay blockbuster "Transformers".

Meanwhile, as Paramount, Google and YouTube play nice, Paramount parent Viacom Inc. and Google Inc. must yet settle a 2006 lawsuit. Viacom has appealed the 2010 decision denying the media giant piracy damages the company alleges YouTube caused. A New York federal judge  ruled that YouTube hadn't broken U.S. copyright laws protecting digital media.