MTV owner Viacom Inc. said Tuesday it has sued YouTube and its corporate parent Google Inc. for alleged copyright infringement and is seeking more than $1 billion in damages.
Viacom claims that the more than 160,000 unauthorized video clips from its cable networks, which also include Comedy Central, VH1, and Nickelodeon, have been available on the popular video-sharing website.
The lawsuit marks a sharp escalation of long-simmering tensions between Viacom and YouTube. Last month, Viacom demanded YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips after several months of talks between the companies broke down.
In a statement, Viacom criticized YouTube's business practices, saying it has "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."
Viacom said YouTube's 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."
"We have not received the lawsuit, but are confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree," a Google spokesperson responded. "We will certainly not let this suit become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube and its ability to attract more users, more traffic and build a stronger community."
YouTube in February said in a statement that it would comply with the request from Viacom and said it cooperates "with all copyright holders to identify and promptly remove infringing content as soon as we are officially notified."
The company also said it was "unfortunate that Viacom will no longer be able to benefit from YouTube's passionate audience which has helped to promote many of Viacom's shows."
Other media companies also have clashed with YouTube over copyrights, but some, including CBS Corp. and General Electric's NBC Universal, have reached deals with the video-sharing site to license their material.
Universal Music Group, a unit of France's Vivendi SA, had threatened to sue YouTube, saying it was a hub for pirated music videos, but the two companies later reached a licensing deal.
Under federal copyright law, online services such as YouTube generally are immune from liability as long as they respond to takedown requests, which YouTube often does. Not as legally clear is what happens when another user posts the same video, something commonly done on free video-sharing sites. Although YouTube's terms of service agreement prohibits this type of practice, it doesn't have an effective way of blocking users from uploading the content.
Viacom filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and is seeking an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from using its clips.
In November, YouTube agreed to delete nearly 30,000 files after the Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers complained of copyright infringement.
