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- The Guardian
- Wednesday March 14 2007
MTV's owner, Viacom, launched a surprise attack on Google yesterday, filing a $1bn (£520m) lawsuit against the internet giant and its YouTube video-sharing website.
In documents filed with a US district court in New York, Viacom - which runs TV channels including MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Comedy - accused the Silicon Valley firm of "massive intentional copyright infringement" on YouTube, which Google bought last year for $1.65bn.
The lawsuit is the latest flare-up in a running battle between the two companies over a host of clips taken from TV which have subsequently appeared on the video sharing site.
Popular programmes such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the anarchic comedy South Park, and children's favourite SpongeBob SquarePants have all been the focus of contention as Google tried to negotiate its way through the choppy legal waters.
But the process of taking down illegal clips has developed into a cat and mouse game, with TV producers attempting to catch copyright infringers as soon as they post a piece of video online. Viacom says that more than 160,000 individual YouTube clips have infringed its rights so far, and is concerned that these have been viewed more than 1.5bn times - depriving the company, it says, of valuable advertising revenue.
The case revolves around copyrighted videos taken from television by users and uploaded to YouTube. Viacom sees Google's procedure for flagging up copyright infringements as inadequate and accuses the Californian firm of dragging its heels to profit from illegal activity.
Viacom said: "YouTube is a significant for-profit organisation that 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. Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal.
"In fact, YouTube 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 on to the victims of its infringement."
Google reacted strongly to the allegations, saying that it was confident that YouTube had respected the law.
"YouTube is great for users and offers real opportunities to rights holders," Google said. "We will certainly not let this suit become a distraction to the continuing growth and performance of YouTube and its ability to attract more users, more traffic and build a stronger community."
The acquisition of YouTube last year led many industry insiders to expect a slew of lawsuits from angry broadcasters. With Google's heavy financial backing, many believed that YouTube would face a series of legal actions over its controversial reputation as a haven for copyrighted TV clips. But the company has managed to engage with many rights owners and seal agreements to publicise their content on the site by legal methods. Brands including the BBC, Chelsea football club and NBA basketball in the US have all signed deals to set up their own channels within the website, but Viacom said it had failed to come to a satisfactory arrangement.
"After a great deal of unproductive negotiation, and remedial efforts by ourselves and other copyright holders, YouTube continues in its unlawful business model. Therefore, we must turn to the courts to prevent Google and YouTube from continuing to steal value from artists and to obtain compensation."
Viacom has been trying to draw internet viewers to its own sites, including the MTV Flux cross-media channel, which is aimed at the same audience as YouTube. It has signed a deal to use Joost, an innovative internet TV platform built by the creators of Kazaa and Skype, expected to launch later this year, as its online distributor.
It is the largest case of its kind faced by Google, which faces a series of accusations from a variety of sources. Many established media owners - including book publishers and newspapers - are concerned that Google is unfairly profiting from their work by running advertising alongside content shown on its website. Last week Microsoft joined the fray by accusing Google of a "cavalier" attitude to copyright, which threatened the long-term futures of many creative industries.
