Viacom won't back down on Google
October 23, 2007
Viacom has stated that it will not drop its $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube parent Google. Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s chief executive, said that Google had not done enough to prevent content from being illegally uploaded to YouTube.
Viacom, owners of MTV and Nickelodeon, claims that Google allowed more than 160,000 clips of its programming to be uploaded to YouTube, the video-sharing website it owns. Google denies that is infringing Viacom’s copyright, and claims that it removes unauthorised videos from YouTube when asked to by content owners.
Dauman said he had “an open mind” with regards to reaching an agreement with Google, which he described as a “responsible company”, but that a settlement “wasn’t quite there yet”.