Viacom sues Google for $1 billion

Viacom must be sick of their people spending all day searching You Tube and Google Video for Viacom content because they've just sued them for a billion dollars.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Viacom sued Google and its online video subsidiary YouTube for $1 billion Tuesday, the first big lawsuit against the online video site and its parent for copyright infringement.

In the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Viacom (Charts), owner of MTV and Comedy Central, said that "almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times."

In addition to damages, Viacom said it wants an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement.

A spokesman for Google said the company had yet to see the lawsuit but that Google feels "confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree."

Viacom first demanded that YouTube take down videos from shows on Viacom-owned networks that were posted on the site without Viacom's consent. Google bought YouTube for nearly $1.7 billion last year.

Viacom is the first major media firm to sue Google and YouTube for copyright infringement. Other media companies, including GE (Charts)-owned NBC Universal, CBS (Charts), and Universal Music Group, have decided to partner with YouTube, the world's most popular online video site. But Viacom said that it decided to sue Google and YouTube "after a great deal of unproductive negotiation."

"Obviously, they couldn't come to an agreement. Viacom must have felt its back was against the wall and had to pull the trigger and file a lawsuit," said Barry Cohen, partner in the intellectual property practice with Thorp Reed & Armstrong LLP, a law firm based in Pittsburgh.

Full article here.

Should I take down the South Park clip I posted? Naaaa... I'll wait for the cease and desist letter.