Currently, YouTube Red is merely a regular YouTube without ads and the option to save videos offline.
However, YouTube is seeking streaming rights to TV series and movies, in the hopes of creating one video service to rule them all. The company is in the process of meeting with Hollywood executives to “consider pitches and negotiate licenses for new content”. Presumably, that means current TV shoes and movies (in other word: licensed content) and therefore not available on YouTube for free. It’s interesting to note, however, that YouTube has long had a smattering of pay-per-view movies available, so it’s not quite a stranger to licensing content.
On the other hand, Netflix-style streaming of content would be a big change for YouTube. Since its founding, it has stuck fairly rigidly to the model of user-uploaded videos, paid for by ads. Still, YouTube’s already shaken that model up with Red. With premium-only original content already on the way for next year, it’s no big leap to assume YouTube might want to integrate streaming as well.
If it manages to secure streaming rights, Google might well have a killer media package on its hands consists of YouTube represents the very best of user-made content on the web and Google Play Music (included in the $10 a month charged for Red) is a very decent streaming service.