Pogue sums up some of the things wrong with Google video

Google Video: Trash Mixed With Treasure – New York Times
From the article:
Google is surely aware of these limitations and has plans to address them. One aspect of Google Video, however, will not be so easily changed: its copy-protection scheme, a new one that Google wrote itself. You can’t burn the shows to a CD or DVD, and can’t play them back on portable players like iPods. In fact, most of the TV shows don’t play back at all without an active Internet connection, which, for most people, also rules out laptop playback on planes, trains and automobiles. This is sickening news for anyone who thought that two incompatible copy-protection schemes – Apple’s and Microsoft’s – were complex and sticky enough already. And compared with the ABC and NBC shows available on the iTunes store, the value of the CBS shows looks even worse.