July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc. and its YouTube video- sharing site denied infringing copyrights of England's Football Association Premier League Ltd. and said any lapses resulted from innocent error.

The companies filed defenses yesterday in federal court in New York, where the soccer league and the independent music publisher Bourne Co. sued them in May. The defendants also said they are protected under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes Internet services immune to infringement claims if they take steps to prevent illegal postings.

``Legitimate services like YouTube provide the world with free and authorized access to extraordinary libraries of information that would not be available without the DMCA -- information created by users who have every right to share it,'' YouTube said.

YouTube, bought by Mountain View, California-based Google last year for $1.65 billion, is trying to fend off claims that it permits rampant postings of unauthorized material. Viacom Inc., owner of MTV Networks and Comedy Central, separately is demanding more than $1 billion in damages from the site.

The soccer league and New York-based Bourne asked for class- action, or group, status for their suit, which would allow them to represent sports groups, music companies and other copyright owners.

YouTube and Google said their actions are permitted under U.S. copyright law that allows some uses of protected material. They argued that the Premier League and Bourne haven't done enough on their own to limit illegal postings.

Soccer League's Lawyer

The Internet companies ``deny that they have knowingly misappropriated and exploited plaintiffs' property for their own gain without payment or license to the owners of the intellectual property,'' they said in the court filing.

Soccer league lawyer Louis M. Solomon said the DMCA, designed to protect copyright owners, doesn't protect Google and YouTube. Their business relies on the unauthorized use of copyrighted works, he said.

``We are eager to litigate that question to conclusion, because I think the law is completely to the contrary,'' Solomon, of the New York-based law firm Proskauer Rose, said in an interview. ``There's nothing wrong with the statute. What's wrong in our view is how YouTube has distorted the statute to its own unlawful end.''

Shares of Google rose 78 cents to $543.34 in Nasdaq Stock Exchange composite trading. They have risen about 30 percent in the past year, giving the company a market capitalization of $169.3 billion.

The case is Football Association Premier League Ltd. v. YouTube Inc., 07cv3582, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 10, 2007 17:35 EDT