It’s been a long week for Google. At the beginning of the month, Google finally submitted their response (PDF) to Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit over video content on YouTube. The gist - they’re claiming they’re protected by the DMCA. Search Engine Land and TechDirt have good summaries of the response.

But Viacom wasn’t the first company to sue YouTube. There’s also a much smaller lawsuit involving Robert Tur, a LA news reporter who sued for copyright infringement. NBC Universal and Viacom just recently asked the US District Court in LA that they be allowed to file a friends-of-the court brief. The thought is that this case will be tried before the Viacom case and could set precedent for how the Viacom case plays out in court.

Next, the Premier League (the UK soccer league) sued YouTube for copyright infringement, apparently claiming that YouTube encourages copyright infringement and doesn’t pay copyright owners. They also have a class action suit site up for anyone else who feels YouTube violated their copyright and wants to get in on the settlement (if there is one).

Finally, Thailand is also taking YouTube to court because they hosted a video that many Thais felt insulted their king. At the heart of the case is whether Google lied about not being able to stop the video clip last month that ridiculed Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

At least Google has the cash to fight back. In the copyright infringement cases, it’s likely that Google’s response will be similar to the Viacom one. I’m not entirely sure how it will respond to the Thailand claim which wants YouTube to censor inappropriate content.

If I understand the complaint, Thailand has blocked the site since April 4 because YouTube didn’t take the clip down. According to this BBC article, eventually YouTube did cave to censorship and removed the clip. While I’m not sure exactly what the clip was about but a search on YouTube shows a number of derogatory videos still up about the Thai King. Are they looking to have YouTube ban each one? Will they provide a list of “inappropriate content” and hope Google caters to their demands? I guess we’ll see…