• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, May 1, 2007

Google this week filed papers arguing that Viacom's $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit is meritless.

While Google raises a variety of arguments, the company, as expected, relies heavily on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which generally provides Internet companies with a safe harbor from copyright lawsuits based on user-submitted content, as long as the companies remove such content when the owner complains.

"Viacom's complaint in this action challenges the careful balance established by Congress when it enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," Google states in its response. "By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for internet communications, Viacom's complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression."

Yet, despite Google's rhetoric, legal opinion differs about whether courts will decide that the DMCA protects the company. That's because the DMCA safe harbor provisions have some exceptions -- one, notably, is that companies that directly profit from copyrighted content can't claim the protection.

For now, no one knows how courts will determine whether YouTube has directly profited from pirated clips. But if the company steps up efforts to monetize itself with ads, it's plausible that the courts will conclude that YouTube is profiting from pirated material.

Google's response also asserts a host of additional issues, including the intriguing allegation that Viacom has "unclean hands." While the document is maddeningly short on detail, it indicates that Google intends to cast at least some blame on Viacom should the matter go to trial.