NEW YORK - A $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit challenging YouTube's ability to keep copyrighted material off its popular video-sharing site threatens how hundreds of millions of people exchange all kinds of information on the Internet, YouTube owner Google Inc. said. if Google's lawyers made the claim in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan as the company responded to Viacom Inc.'s latest lawsuit alleging that the Internet has led to "an explosion of copyright infringement" by YouTube and others.

The back-and-forth between the companies has intensified since Viacom brought its lawsuit last year, saying it was owed damages for the unauthorized viewing of its programming from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks, including such hits as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

In papers submitted to a judge late Friday, Google said YouTube "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works."

It said that by seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Viacom "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression."

Google said YouTube was faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying the federal law was intended to protect companies like YouTube as long as they responded properly to content owners' claims of infringement.

On that score, Viacom says Google has set a terrible example.

In a rewritten lawsuit filed last month, Viacom said YouTube consistently allows unauthorized copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its Web site and viewed tens of thousands of times.

Viacom said it had identified more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of copyrighted programming — including "SpongeBob SquarePants," "South Park" and "MTV Unplugged" episodes and the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" — that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times."

The company said its count of unauthorized clips represents only a fraction of the content on YouTube that violates its copyrights.

It said Google and YouTube had done "little or nothing" to stop infringement.

"To the contrary, the availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants' business plan," Viacom said.

Move the server and business out of USA, problem solved.

Move the server and business out of USA, problem solved.

You can't even imagine Youtube's or Google's infrastructure, can you?

Shouldn't Google/YouTube be covered under the safe haven parts of the DMCA? YouTube can't be expected to watch every video before it's put on the site, the most they can be realistically expected to do is to remove the offending content when they're notified (which they do, hence complying with the law)

And I can see why Google/YouTube don't want an automated infringement checker, a few wrong detections (i.e. this video of your cat is detected as the james bond movie) and they could screw up their "reputation" with uploaders and viewers.

I would never want to watch full episodes or movies on youtube because the quality is so bad.

Content holders need to stfu. If they're really worried about their stuffs being leaked onto the net they'd be going after places like eztv or vtv. I mean, honestly, 30 second clips from vairous eps on Youtube is hardly what I call infringement as it is free advertising.

Google said YouTube "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works."

Is that the same way Google has gone "far beyond" to "enhance" user's Internet experience with advertising? Or the same way they have gone "far beyond" to protect privacy by analyzing (reading) it to deliver even more advertising?

I suppose if Google actually did remove offending content they that's all you could expect them to do. Either the offending videos are not being taken down after notifying Google or Viacom can't hire enough people to scout out YouTube and find and report any offending videos. So, which is it?

Viacom's YouTube suit threatens freedom

Oops! No, the only thing it threatens is the ability to illegally make media available on YouTube. It has nothing to do with freedom, not even a little.

So I forgot an s, I'm so very sorry I forgot Neowin has people like you so I have to check spelling everytime.

Still the point is valid, since Youtube also sports data centers across the world - simply move the entire operation overseas and dump what's left of the fascists states of usa behind to do business elsewhere.

So I forgot an s, I'm so very sorry I forgot Neowin has people like you so I have to check spelling everytime.

Still the point is valid, since Youtube also sports data centers across the world - simply move the entire operation overseas and dump what's left of the fascists states of usa behind to do business elsewhere.

You have a real attitude problem.