US court rejects Viacom's $1 billion copyright case against Google's You Tube

A US court today threw out a $1 billion infringement lawsuit brought on by media company Viacom accusing Google of illegally allowing the former's copyrighted clips to be posted on the internet giant's YouTube video site.

US District Judge Louis Stanton ended the three-year-long case, when he ruled that Viacom did not have a case after You Tube removed virtually all of Viacom's clips after getting a notice from Viacom in February 2007.

Judge Stanton noted that YouTube had removed nearly all the coprighted material of Viacom the very next day after it received the takedown notice from Viacom.

This is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other. We're excited about this decision and look forward to renewing our focus on supporting the incredible variety of ideas and expressions that billions of people post and watch on YouTube every day around the world, wrote Kent Walker, vice president and general counsel, in an official blog posting on Google's website.

Google, which had bought YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion, had argued that YouTube complies with the requirements in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and Walker said the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the DMCA against claims of copyright infringement.

Viacom had filed a $1 billion lawsuit in March 2007 against Google alleging that tens of thousands of its copyrighted videos had been posted on YouTube, and the internet giant as well as You Tube had ignored the copyright violations.

Google and YouTube argued that Viacom had given them sufficient notice of particular alleged offence and as such they were protected under DMCA law.

Viacom said it planned to appeal against the ruling.