NEW YORK (AP) – MTV owner Viacom Inc. said Tuesday it has sued YouTube and its corporate parent Google Inc. for alleged copyright infringement and is seeking more than $1 billion in damages.
The complaint contends that roughly 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom programming have been available on the popular video-sharing Web site. In addition to MTV, Viacom also owns a number of other cable networks including VH1, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
In February Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized video clips from its site after several months of talks between the companies broke down.
Viacom filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and is also seeking an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from using its clips.
A YouTube representative could not immediately be reached.
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