• TechCrunch, Friday, July 16, 2010 1:35 PM

In an interesting side note from Google's second quarter earnings call yesterday, the search giant said it spent $100 million fighting Viacom's copyright lawsuit. "And that was before it went to trial," remarks TechCrunch. "The legal bill could have ended up being many times that amount, but last month the judge threw out the case, and Google declared victory."

Three years after Viacom filed a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against YouTube, a federal judge threw the case out last month, ruling that the Google unit could not be held responsible for the clips users post online. Viacom, which plans to appeal the ruling, said it is "fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the intent of Congress and the views of the Supreme Court." U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton said, however, that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act includes a "safe harbor" provision, which was designed to relieve Web sites from the burden of checking user-generated material before it's posted. Adds TechCrunch: "If Google spent $100 million on lawyers, I wonder how much Viacom spent."

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