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Google asks judge to drop Viacom lawsuit

Google Inc has asked a US judge to throw out a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit by US entertainment giant Viacom Inc, claiming that the suit threatens today's Internet lifestyle.

In a formal response on Monday to a lawsuit Viacom filed in federal court in New York City in March, the California-based Internet search colossus denied that its popular video Web site YouTube is involved in "massive" copyright infringement.

Google shielded itself with the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), legislation passed in 1998 that says Internet firms are not responsible for what Internet users put on Web sites.

Viacom charged that Google and YouTube are intentionally ignoring its copyrights by not stopping users from putting clips of its television programs on the globally popular video-sharing Web site.

"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," Google said in its legal response.

"Google and YouTube respect the importance of intellectual property rights and not only comply with their safe harbor obligations under the DMCA, but go well above and beyond what the law requires," it said.

Google asked the judge to immediately deny Viacom's claims and order the New York-based entertainment company to pay Google's legal fees and whatever other damages the court sees fit.

Google said it was confident the courts would take its side against Viacom, whose empire includes many youth-oriented networks like MTV along with the Paramount and DreamWorks movie studios.

Viacom said YouTube had "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."

"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 when filing the suit.

The lawsuit seeks more than US$1 billion in damages, plus an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement.
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