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Google challenges Viacom lawsuit as threat to Internet
Google challenges Viacom lawsuit as threat to Internet
Wednesday May 02, 2007
Google wants a US judge to declare it the victor over US entertainment giant Viacom and end a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit it claims threatens today's Internet lifestyle.
In a formal response to a lawsuit Viacom filed in federal court in New York City in March, the California-based Internet search colossus denied that Google-owned website YouTube is involved in "massive" copyright infringement.
Google shielded itself with the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, legislation passed in 1998 that says Internet firms are not responsible for what Internet users put on websites.
Viacom charges in its lawsuit 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 website.
"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."
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.
Fijilive
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