Google: Viacom Uploaded Own Clips to YouTube, Then Sued

Viacom secretly uploaded video clips of its shows to YouTube and then launched a $1 billion copyright-infringement suit over those same clips, according to Google's lawyers. Google claims the company, seeking to promote shows like South Park, hired over a dozen marketing agencies to upload the clips, making sure they were "roughed up" so they looked like they had been uploaded by fans.

Google says Viacom's attack on YouTube came after a failed attempt to buy the site in 2006, the Wrap notes. Viacom, in court documents released yesterday as part of an ongoing lawsuit it filed in 2007, fires back that YouTube was nothing but "a pirate site" when Google bought it. Google, Viacom says, "abandoned its scruples in order to continue growing the YouTube user base" and "embraced YouTube's illegal business model. (More YouTube stories.)