Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt says he plans to fight a $1-billion US lawsuit from entertainment company Viacom Inc. aggressively, saying his company has been obeying the law with its YouTube video-sharing service.

Viacom has claimed that YouTube is a massive centre of copyright infringement, since it allows users to upload video clips from Viacom properties such as Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. Google says it's obeying the law by taking down such clips whenever it's notified.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, shown here in 2006, denied Thursday that Google's YouTube service was violating Viacom copyrights.
(Paul Sakuma/Associated Press)

Schmidt, in a wide-ranging discussion late Thursday night with reporters at a retreat for media and technology CEOs, said that the law is on Google's side.

Viacom, which built itself up from a small chain of movie theatres into a major media conglomerate, is a company "built on lawsuits," he said.

"Look at their history," he added, referring to a series of legal battles Viacom engaged in to get access to movies from Hollywood studios when it was a much smaller company. He also pointed out that the company's current CEO, Philippe Dauman, is a former top lawyer for Viacom.

Schmidt said Google was making it easier for owners of copyrights to ensure that material won't get posted on YouTube. Viacom had sued Google in March after a long series of talks reached an impasse.

Google purchased YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion US.

Google says the company respects copyrights and is covered under the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which requires that owners of websites take down any infringing material as soon as they're notified.

On other topics, Schmidt said that the rapid growth of social networks such as Facebook would eventually be positive for the search company, even though many of the pages made on such networks are now private.

Google made a deal with MySpace, a major social networking site owned by News Corp., the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, to be the exclusive provider of search on the site. Providing certain targets are met, the deal could result in $900 million US in advertising revenue sharing for MySpace.