Google vows to keep fighting Viacom

SEOUL, South Korea

Google Inc. is not considering settling out of court a US$1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by Viacom Inc., an executive with the U.S. Internet search engine said Wednesday.

"Nope," David Eun, vice president in charge of content partnerships at Google, told Dow Jones Newswires at a press meeting when asked if Google had any plan to resolve the issue outside court.

"We're going all the way to the Supreme Court," Eun said. "We're very clear about it."

In March last year, Viacom sued Google and its YouTube unit for copyright infringement after failing to reach a licensing agreement for the use of Viacom content YouTube.

U.S. media conglomerate Viacom owns Paramount Pictures, MTV and Comedy Central and other entertainment businesses.

On Tuesday, Sumner Redstone, Viacom's executive chairman, called on Internet operators to step up protection of copyrights for content providers and reiterated that he will not tolerate piracy by video-sharing Web sites, singling out Google's YouTube by name.

Eun was in Seoul for a technology forum and to discuss video content partnerships with South Korean Internet companies.