NBC Universal, a company owned by General Electric and Vivendi, joined Viacom in its legal battle against YouTube. This time the case involves Los Angeles News Service operator Robert Tur, who sued YouTube in July because the website allowed users to appropriate his footage of trucker Reginald Denny being beaten during the 1992.

YouTube submitted a bid in order to dismiss the copyright infringement suit. Today, NBC and Viacom submitted friend of the court brief opposing YouTube's bid.

"Many of NBCU's most valuable copyrighted works have been copied, performed, and disseminated without authorization by YouTube and other similarly operated Websites. NBCU has a strong interest in preserving the strength and viability of all of its legal rights and remedies in response to such conduct."

In March, Viacom filed a suit against site YouTube and its owner Google, seeking $1B in damages for copyright infringement. The lawsuit was filed at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York “for massive intentional copyright infringement of Viacom’s entertainment properties�.

Viacom also requested an injunction that would prohibit YouTube (which was acquired by Google last last year for 1.65 billion dollars) and Google Video from further displaying Viacom’s copyrighted materials.

According to Viacom’s complaint almost 160,000 unauthorized clips from its cable networks, which include MTV, Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon have been posted illegally on YouTube and these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.