Google confident of defending itself in Viacom copyright violation lawsuit

Google confident of defending itself in Viacom copyright violation lawsuit

Search engine giant Google has been sued by media company Viacom which is claiming that their video sharing service YouTube.com is a hub of digital piracy.

Google has now said that they are confident that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) offers them enough protection from the Viacom’s claims.

Viacom is seeking $1 Billion in damages for copyright infringement from Google and YouTube.com. They have also requested an injunction that would prohibit Google from hosting Viacom owned content on the service.

Google said in a statement: “We are confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree. YouTube is great for users and offers real opportunities to rights holders: the opportunity to interact with users; to promote their content to a young and growing audience; and to tap into the online advertising market. 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.”

Alexander Macgillivray, Google’s associate general counsel for products and intellectual property added: “Here there is a law which is specifically designed to give Web hosts such as us, or… bloggers or people that provide photo-album hosting online … the ’safe harbor’ we need in order to be able to do hosting online. We will never launch a product or acquire a company unless we are completely satisfied with its legal basis for operating.”