The news was first announced by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, says Hollywood Reporter, only to be later confirmed by Lionsgate’s president of digital media, Curt Marvis.

The details of the deal have yet to be made public. Word is YouTube and Lionsgate are still working over the contract and it will take a while before everything will be settled in the legal papers.

Needless to say, the new agreement won’t mean to much to YouTube in financial terms, but it’s does some good to the site’s image, which has been in the shadow of the copyright infringing lawsuits for some time now. It basically says “we’re going legit, give us a break here!”

And speaking about breaks, YouTube is still having a hard time including ad break onto the site. Or even regular ads, for that matter. Even though the site’s audience is going through the servers’ roof, advertisers aren’t quite happy with the way YouTube is handling things.

On one hand, they would like short ads running before each YT clip. On the other, YouTube users simply hate them, so the site has to keep them happy as well.