Viacom says YouTube violated copyrights

YouTube (Credit: YouTube.com)

Viacom Inc. alleged in a federal court in New York that Google Inc.’s YouTube video-sharing Web site has violated its copyright.

“The starting point for this motion is this undisputable fact: tens of thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views, were taken unlawfully from Viacom’s copyrighted works without authorization,” Viacom said in its brief.

“Fostering and countenancing this piracy were central to YouTube’s economic business model.”

Viacom first filed the suit on March 13, 2007 at the U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan , and accused Google of encouraging YouTube users to post pirated clips of TV shows and features films to the site.

 Viacom claims that over 63,000 of its copyrighted videos were posted on YouTube without authorization, including clips from “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” ”South Park” and “MTV Unplugged.”

“YouTube and sites like it will cease to exist in their current form if Viacom and others have their way in their lawsuits against YouTube,” YouTube said on its blog today.

Viacom is suing YouTube for $1 billion in damages. YouTube was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion.