'YouTube faces $1bn lawsuit for alleged breach of copyright...'

· MTV's owner takes on Google over site's TV clips
· Case is latest move in fight with established media

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.

My Comments...

Personally i think that legally and proffesionally speaking it is wrong for 'YouTube' to feel as if they have the freedom to exibhit anything that they want on on this site. Fair enough it is a popular and easy way for everyone to access the media but perhaps for future reference they should consider gaining permission from certain companies before deciding to put particular videos up as they should consider the fact the this is the way that these companies make their money...it's actually quite selfish of 'YouTube' to not have considered such attributes regarding other companies and their rights.