YouTube’s unique viewership grew 1%, from 147.1 million to 149.2 million because of the massive video collection available on their site making them the largest video site in the world.  And this doesn’t go well with Viacom.

Back in 2007, Viacom, the leading global entertainment content company and parent company of MTV, VH1 and COMEDY CENTRAL, sued Google and YouTube in federal court for “massive intentional copyright infringement.”  Google used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to protect itself and YouTube from Viacom’s claims.  The DMCA gives Web sites a huge allowance as they can’t be held responsible for videos that are uploaded by users, even if users upload stuff they don’t own.  In case someone finds a pirated video on YouTube, they can ask YouTube to take down the pirated video.  The court ruled in favor of Google in 2010 which Viacom swore to appeal.

Today, Google and Viacom will meet again in a New York court for another round of the copyright infringement case.  Viacom is firm on their belief that Google and YouTube should be held responsible for the pirated videos since they can control which videos can appear on the video site.

The funny thing about this case is that CBS, Viacom’s sister company is one of YouTube’s biggest clients.  YouTube helps big companies like CBS manage their video files, they can either store them so that those files won’t take up much space on their own sites or to help them distribute of keep public files that they do want to share legally.

Like the first case Viacom filed, this one is likely to take years before it gets settled.  By that time, Viacom could actually sober up and just do what CBS does and work with YouTube to help them manage their video files.