Viacom

We already knew that in the heated battle among location-based social-networking start-ups, Foursquare already had Ashton Kutcher on its team. Turns out it also has "Jersey Shore" star "DJ Pauly D," one of a handful of MTV and VH1 celebrities who are featured in a new marketing campaign that MTV Networks has inked with the pumped-up Foursquare.

(Serious question: Has this start-up jumped the shark already?)

The partnership tests a new kind of Foursquare account known as "Celebrity Mode," in which a prominent Foursquare user (ahem, Ashton) can choose to share "check-ins" … Read more

Thursday's 200-page dump of court documents in the 3-year-old, $1 billion copyright fight between Viacom and Google's YouTube was entertaining enough.

The documents, filed in federal court in New York, had everything from accusations of young, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs cynically ignoring the law as they sought their fortune, to claims of duplicity from a New York media conglomerate trying to embrace a start-up's youthful audience, even while it was threatening to sue that start-up into oblivion. Oh yeah, and they revealed that the conglomerate also considered buying the little company, which made the entrepreneurs multimillionaires upon selling … Read more

Turns out, according to some developers, that the only way to get your hands on a prereleased iPad is to build it a special sealed bunker of its very own, with darkened windows and a chain so it can't get up and walk away on you. People, we are NOT making this up. Also, we dish the dish on Viacom vs. YouTube; get a good, long look at Windows Phone 7; and yeah, Molly's mad about the Android 2.1 delay. No surprise.

One tech giant settled a legal spat this week, while others are just warming up.

Court filings released recently in the bitter $1 billion copyright fight between Viacom and Google's YouTube show just how far apart the companies remain, as the 3-year-old case winds through federal court.

Viacom, in 108 pages of court documents, portrays YouTube's founders as reckless copyright violators who were far more concerned with increasing traffic to their site than obeying the law. Even executives at Google, which acquired YouTube for $1.7 billion in October 2006, questioned the ethics of building a site through … Read more

Viacom, parent company of BET, MTV and Paramount Pictures issued a statement Thursday following the release of hundreds of documents regarding the company's copyright complaint against Google. The full text of the statement is below. Go here for the full story about what was revealed.

YouTube was intentionally built on infringement and there are countless internal YouTube communications demonstrating that YouTube's founders and its employees intended to profit from that infringement. By their own admission, the site contained "truckloads" of infringing content and founder Steve Chen explained that YouTube needed to "steal" videos because … Read more

Viacom and Google are airing their dirty laundry in court documents unsealed Thursday, revealing some noteworthy behind-the-scenes information in the copyright battle. That, and other news of the day, including a Kindle app for Mac and a safe touchdown for ISS crew members.

Today's stories:

Viacom, Google air dirty laundry in court docs

HTC fires back at Apple patent complaint

Apple director Jerry York, 71, dies

Amazon releases Kindle app beta for Mac

Microsoft nixes barrier to Windows 7's 'XP mode'

Soyuz capsule brings back space station fliers

Chip spending could reach double-digit growth this year

Report: USB mass storage coming to Xbox 360… Read more

With the release of hundreds of pages of court documents in the legal dispute between Google and Viacom over the presence of copyright material on YouTube, Google has released a statement on the case. It follows below in its entirety. See this CNET story for more background on the case and check back later for new information as the documents are studied.

The statement was attributed to Zahavah Levine, YouTube chief counsel.

Broadcast yourself Around the globe, YouTube has become a metaphor for the democratizing power of the Internet and information. YouTube gives unknown performers, filmmakers, and artists new ways … Read more

Court filings released on Thursday in the bitter $1 billion copyright fight between Viacom and Google's YouTube show just how far apart the companies remain, as the 3-year-old case winds through federal court.

Viacom, in 108 pages of court documents, portrays YouTube's founders as reckless copyright violators who were far more concerned with increasing traffic to their site than obeying the law. Even executives at Google, which acquired YouTube for $1.7 billion in October 2006, questioned the ethics of building a site through questionable copyright practices, according to the Viacom filings.

But in the 100-page document filed … Read more

The copyright showdown between Google and Viacom, parent company of Paramount and MTV, is finally about to start playing out before the public.

Expect fireworks.

Viacom filed a $1 billion copyright complaint three years ago against Google, accusing the search engine of profiting from and encouraging copyright infringement on YouTube. Google denied the allegations and said the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects the company and all Internet service providers from liability for infringing activity by users. On Thursday, we'll get to see what kind of documentation the two companies possess to support their claims.

Sources close to the case … Read more