A judge has ruled that YouTube, a Google owned company, did not violate Viacom Inc.’s copyrights when video clips including MTV and Comedy Central content were posted on the video sharing website. This is a huge victory for Google since the lawsuit asked for at least $1 billion in damages.

U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton of New York ruled yesterday that YouTube was protected by the safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which says that an internet service provider isn’t liable for copyright infringement if the provider removes material from its site when contacted by the copyright owner. With nearly 24 hours worth of new video posted to the site every minute, it would be impossible for YouTube as a service provider to monitor and remove infringing content on their own. Therefore, they have to rely on the copyright holders to inform them when they believe there is infringement. So long as the service provider (YouTube in this instance) takes down allegedly infringing material when asked, there is no liability under the law.

Both sides moved for summary judgment in the case which is a determination of the case without a full trial. By granting summary judgment to Google the judge essentially said that without diving any further into the information, this case clearly comes within the scope of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and YouTube falls within the Act’s safe harbor provision.

Viacom will appeal the decision. “The case has always been about whether intentional theft of copyrighted works is permitted under existing law and we always knew that the critical underlying issue would need to be addressed by courts at the appellate levels,” it said on its website. It went on to say that the court’s ruling only “accelerates our opportunity to do so.”