Google blasted Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit yesterday, insisting that the claim threatens the freedom of speech on the web.
The search engine giant, which bought video streaming site YouTube last year for $1.65 billion, said it has every intention of fighting Viacom in court to prove the integrity of the world's most popular video website.
"We think YouTube offers the world's leading platform for entertainment, education and free speech," said Michael Kwun, managing counsel for litigation at Google, at a press briefing in California.
"We're not going to let this lawsuit distract us."
Viacom claims there are 160,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube and insists the site is carrying out "massive copyright infringement".
However, Google now says it and YouTube "not only comply with their safe harbor obligations, but go well above and beyond what the law requires".
Almost immediately after filing the document with the US District Court in New York, Viacom hit back.
''This ignores the most important fact of the suit, which is that YouTube does not qualify for safe harbor protection under the DMCA," it said in a statement.
"It is obvious that YouTube has knowledge of infringing material on their site and they are profiting from it."
