YouTube wins Viacom copyright battle

YouTube has scored a courtroom win over Viacom

YouTube has won its copyright case with Viacom after a US district court ruled that the video-sharing site and its parent Google had complied with the 'safe harbour' requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The ruling strikes down Viacom's $1bn legal action against YouTube, which the media firm had accused of profiting from the trade in pirated videos of Viacom TV programmes.

Viacom alleged in early 2007 that Google had allowed hundreds of thousands of Viacom-owned video clips to be posted to the site, and had generated advertising profits from the video traffic.

The case was among the largest of YouTube's remaining legal battles, and had recently turned ugly when the two firms accused each another of blackmail and fabricating copyright infringement cases.

"This is an important victory not just for us, but for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other," wrote Google vice president and general counsel Kent Walker in a blog post.

"We are excited about this decision and look forward to renewing our focus on supporting the incredible variety of ideas and expression that billions of people post and watch on YouTube every day around the world."

Viacom confirmed that it will appeal against the decision. "YouTube and Google demonstrated that tools to limit piracy are not impossible to find or even that difficult to implement," said Viacom executive vice president and general counsel Michael Fricklas.

"They fixed the problem of rampant piracy on YouTube after Viacom filed this lawsuit. Before that, however, YouTube and Google stole hundreds of thousands of video clips from artists and content creators, including Viacom, building a substantial business that was sold for billions of dollars."