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Viacom Sues Google for $1 Billion

Viacom has sued Google, alleging copyright infringement from video-sharing site YouTube and seeking $1 billion in damages.

Viacom has sued Google, alleging copyright infringement from video-sharing site YouTube and seeking $1 billion in damages.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, follows a Digital Millennium Copyright Act request Viacom sent to Google last month related to the unauthorized posting of Viacom videos to YouTube.

At the time, Viacom demanded that Google remove over 100,000 of its clips from YouTube, which Google acquired last year for $1.65 billion. Google said it would comply with the request.

In escalating its battle with YouTube with this lawsuit, Viacom reiterates that YouTube has allowed and benefitted from "massive intentional" copyright violations of Viacom videos.
Viacom: YouTube Built Biz on Infringement

In addition to $1 billion damages, Viacom is asking the court for an injunction barring Google and YouTube from continuing the alleged infringement, Viacom said Tuesday in a statement.

Almost 160,000 Viacom video clips have been uploaded to YouTube without permission and have been viewed over 1.5 billion times, Viacom alleges.

"YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google," Viacom charged in the statement.

Google and YouTube illegally profit from the traffic that the unauthorized videos draw to their sites by selling advertising, according to Viacom, which added that YouTube has been lax in its attempts to stop its users from uploading copyrighted videos without permission.

Viacom decided to sue Google after negotiations and other measures failed to halt the alleged copyright infringement in YouTube, Viacom said.

Viacom is a media conglomerate whose properties include MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures.

Google didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.
PC World, 13 March 2007