Viacom, the media company that owns the Comedy Central and MTV channels, is suing Google and its recently acquired internet video-sharing site YouTube for more than $1 billion in the biggest challenge yet to the web search leader鈥檚 strategy to dominate the online video market.
The lawsuit accuses the two sites of 鈥渕assive intentional copyright infringement鈥�, threatening Google鈥檚 ambition to turn YouTube into a major distributor of entertainment and outlet for advertising.
Viacom has been a highly vocal critic of YouTube and has tried to negotiate payment for YouTube鈥檚 use of material that it owns. NBC Universal and News Corp. have also criticised YouTube鈥檚 copyright protection policies but stopped short of taking legal action.
Advertisement
YouTube does not prevent copyrighted content from being uploaded onto its site, but it will take material down if contacted by copyright owners.
鈥淵ouTube鈥檚 strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, thus generating significant traffic and revenues for itself while shifting the entire burden 鈥� and high cost 鈥� of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement,鈥� Viacom said in a statement.
Unproductive negotiation
Viacom filed the suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking an injunction against further violations, plus damages.
Google said it was confident that YouTube is respecting the copyrights at issue in the Viacom case. 鈥淲e will certainly not let this suit become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube,鈥� Google said in a statement.
Viacom, home to the MTV and Comedy Central channels, contends that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programming have been uploaded onto YouTube and viewed more than 1.5 billion times. The decision to sue Google followed 鈥渁 great deal of unproductive negotiation,鈥� the company said.
Lawsuit magnet
Google bought YouTube in November 2006 for $1.65 billion, aiming to capitalise on its explosive audience growth, built from sharing both homemade and professionally produced videos.
The company said it would introduce technology to help media companies identify pirated videos uploaded by users, but has not given a firm timetable.
Viacom and peers like NBC Universal are also investing heavily in their own Internet video sites in an effort to benefit from the migration of television audiences to the Web.
鈥淰iacom鈥檚 Web traffic is increasing nicely since it pulled content from 鈥楪ooTube鈥�,鈥� said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Capital, a stockbroking company based in New York City, US. 鈥淭here is certainly an opportunity for YouTube to do a deal with Viacom, but Viacom does not have to have a YouTube deal.鈥�
Google鈥檚 dominance in web search had already made it a magnet for lawsuits by copyright and trademark holders. The Silicon Valley company faces outstanding lawsuits in the US and Europe by major book, magazine and online news publishers as well as small-time website operators.
Google has prevailed in high-profile suits against it by auto insurer GEICO over trademark infringement and in a demand by the US Justice Department that Google comply with a request for consumer Web search data.
