• The Associated Press, Tuesday, May 27, 2008 9:15 AM

Google responded to Viacom's $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube, saying the suit threatens how hundreds of millions of people exchange all kinds of information over the Internet. Viacom wants compensation for the unauthorized viewing of its content on YouTube, pointing out that the video-sharing site has profited from its unauthorized distribution.

Google's lawyers filed the claim in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in response to Viacom's original claim that there's been "an explosion of copyright infringement" by YouTube and others on the Web. They added that YouTube "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works," and said that Viacom's suit "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression." Google has frequently cited the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which requires that purveyors of user-generated content only take copyrighted content down when asked to do so by the copyright holder, in its defense.

Viacom, meanwhile, said that YouTube has set a terrible example for the DMCA, by consistently allowing unauthorized copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its Web site and viewed thousands of times before being removed. The media giant claims that it identified more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its content viewed more than 1.5 billion times on YouTube. Viacom and others believe that a technology giant such as Google has the means to prevent the distribution of copyrighted content over its network, but chooses not to, and profits from that decision.

Read the whole story at The Associated Press »