Google refuses to back down in Viacom case

’We are not going to let this lawsuit distract us,’ said Michael Kwun, managing counsel for litigation at Google. The New York Times reports that in its response to the lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Google said that Viacom’s claims were unfounded and asked for a judgment dismissing the complaint. Google’s court filing gives few new details of its legal thinking, which relies heavily on the so-called ‘safe harbour’ provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, enacted in 1998. Those provisions generally hold that Web sites’ owners are not liable for copyright material uploaded by others to their site as long as they promptly remove the material when asked to do so by the copyright owner. In documents filed Monday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Google outlined how it plans to defend itself against Viacom, which along with the damages wants an injunction to prevent further use of its content. Google has requested a jury trial. Computer World reports that a cornerstone of Google\'s defence will be the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which has safe harbour provisions that relieve carriers and hosting providers from responsibility for copyright offences as long as they remove the material. ‘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,’ Google said in its response. Full report in The New York Times Full Computer World report