"SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -Viacom Inc. has filed a $1 billion lawsuit for copyright infringement against Google Inc.'s YouTube unit, alleging that more than 160,000 videos of its content have appeared on the free video-sharing Web site without Viacom's permission.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, also asks that a judge bar YouTube from allowing its users to post any copyrighted videos.
Viacom is the first entertainment giant to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google since the No. 1 Internet search provider bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock last year. At the time of the purchase, announced in October, insiders predicted a bevy of copyright lawsuits would follow.
The Viacom lawsuit illustrates the difficulty Google and YouTube have had in reaching licensing deals with entertainment companies whose videos appear on the site . Viacom had been in negotiations with Google to license its content, it said, but talks have since ended.
"Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws," Viacom said in a statement.
The litigation follows a demand by Viacom earlier this year that YouTube remove 100,000 video clips from its shows, including "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." It was the largest such demand YouTube faced from a copyright owner, and the Web site complied with the request within a week.
Viacom adds that "YouTube's 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 - and high cost - of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement."
The lawsuit also touches on the challenges faced by YouTube and other video sites that let anyone upload videos, seemingly without any oversight.
Relying on user generated content has helped YouTube become one of the most popular sites on the Internet, but it's also opened the door for pirated content, and as Viacom has shown, potentially costly litigation.
A representative for Google and YouTube didn't immediately return a call seeking comment. Ben Charny is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco."
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, also asks that a judge bar YouTube from allowing its users to post any copyrighted videos.
Viacom is the first entertainment giant to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google since the No. 1 Internet search provider bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock last year. At the time of the purchase, announced in October, insiders predicted a bevy of copyright lawsuits would follow.
The Viacom lawsuit illustrates the difficulty Google and YouTube have had in reaching licensing deals with entertainment companies whose videos appear on the site . Viacom had been in negotiations with Google to license its content, it said, but talks have since ended.
"Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws," Viacom said in a statement.
The litigation follows a demand by Viacom earlier this year that YouTube remove 100,000 video clips from its shows, including "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." It was the largest such demand YouTube faced from a copyright owner, and the Web site complied with the request within a week.
Viacom adds that "YouTube's 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 - and high cost - of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement."
The lawsuit also touches on the challenges faced by YouTube and other video sites that let anyone upload videos, seemingly without any oversight.
Relying on user generated content has helped YouTube become one of the most popular sites on the Internet, but it's also opened the door for pirated content, and as Viacom has shown, potentially costly litigation.
A representative for Google and YouTube didn't immediately return a call seeking comment. Ben Charny is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco."
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