NEW YORK – Google Inc. on Monday filed a response to Viacom Inc.’s copyright infringement lawsuit over Google’s massively popular video-sharing sharing site YouTube, arguing that the site’s activities are legal.

Viacom had sued Google on March 13, claiming that YouTube has used digital technology to “willfully infringe copyrights on a huge scale,” facilitating the unauthorized viewing of many pieces of Viacom’s programing from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks, such as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

In a response filed in federal court in New York late Monday, Google said that YouTube respects the importance of copyrights and goes above and beyond what is required under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which gives Web hosts protection from copyright lawsuits so long as they comply with requests to remove unauthorized material.

YouTube says its cooperates with holders of copyrights and immediately complies with requests to have unauthorized material removed from the site.