YouTube has had a 100MB file upload limit all along but earlier this week, the viral video site set a new 10-minute limit aimed at reducing the amount of copyright violations. According to a staff blog entry, more than 99 percent of the uploaded videos are already under 10 minutes and most users only watch videos about or under 3 minutes long. But a YouTube analysis of the longer videos showed that “the overwhelming majority of them were full length, copyrighted videos from tv shows and movies.” The new limit is meant to keep that from happening, although it wouldn’t have prevented the most public recent examples of NBC’s “Lazy Sunday” or the CBS News report on the autistic basketball player.

Maryrose writes that users should know from the blog or press coverage that YouTube is “constantly trying to balance the rights of copyright owners with the rights of our users.” Instead of doing away with longer-form video altogether, YouTube has set up a premium program for professional videos and is working on a solution for those with legit user-gen content that runs longer than 10 minutes. “while still preventing copyrighted full length episodes from entering the system.”

The move comes as YouTube continues to reach out to content companies and coincides with the annoucement of a high-profile arrangement with E! to cross-promote the network’s new broadband channel “The Vine.”
Curious—for those of you making video deals, does this alleviate your concerns about YouTube? Please leave a note in the comments or drop me a line.