Mountain View, Calif. - Responding to a $1 billion copyright infringement filed against the company by media conglomerate Viacom, Google said in a court filing that its YouTube video-sharing site has not infringed copyrights, and furthermore that the lawsuit threatens free expression.

"By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Viacom's complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression," reads Google's response, which was posted by CNET News.com.

Shortly after demanding that Google remove thousands of its copyrighted videos from YouTube -- using methods set forth in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) -- Viacom filed its $1 billion copyright suit against the company.

"It is obvious that YouTube has knowledge of infringing material on their site and they are profiting from it," Viacom told News.com.

"It is simply not credible that a company whose mission is to organize the world's information claims that it can't find what's on YouTube."

"There is a certain irony to the lawsuit," Michael Kwun, managing counsel for litigation at Google, told reporters gathered at Google's headquarters.

"Viacom and others...were at the table when the DMCA was adopted. These are the very people who helped design this law. They are getting material taken down quickly and yet, suddenly, they don't want to live with the other end of the deal."

The parties are scheduled to meet with the judge on July 27 for a case management conference.

Related Links:

http://tinyurl.com/ywvnky (CNET)

http://tinyurl.com/ys4mxl (PDF: Google court filing)