Google to fight Viacom suit

Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt says he plans to aggressively fight a $1-billion lawsuit from entertainment company Viacom Inc., saying the technology company has been obeying the law with its YouTube video-sharing service.

Viacom has claimed that YouTube is a massive center of copyright infringement because it allows users to upload video clips from Viacom properties such as Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. Google says it takes down such clips whenever it is notified, as the law requires.

Schmidt, in a wide-ranging discussion with reporters at an Allen & Co. media conference, said the law was on Google’s side. Viacom, which built itself up from a small chain of movie theaters into a major media conglomerate, was a company “built on lawsuits,” he said.

“Look at their history,” he added, referring to a series of legal battles Viacom engaged in to get access to movies from Hollywood studios when it was a much smaller company. He also pointed out that Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman was a former top lawyer for Viacom.

Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone responded by saying that despite a long history of suing rivals, he preferred to resolve disputes outside of court.

Viacom, based in New York, filed a $1-billion lawsuit against Google in March, saying almost 160,000 clips of Viacom television shows such as “South Park” and “The Colbert Report” were on YouTube without permission. Redstone wants Mountain View, Calif.-based Google to block YouTube users from sharing copyrighted material.

--

The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and Reuters were used in compiling this report.