More than four months after YouTube won a lawsuit filed by Viacom – and just one day after Google announced several new ways in which it’ll try to aid copyright owners – it look like the legal fight is about to start again.  Viacom is reportedly ready to move forward with its appeal.

Sam Schechner wrote this morning, "The New York-based owner of MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures is expected as early as Friday to file its appeal of the June decision with the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  To add firepower to its case, Viacom has brought in former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson to argue."

This is almost sure to get messy.  During the first go-round, lots of documents surfaced that made both sides look bad.  A few more may have been discovered by now, and in any event, both sides are bound to make every effort to promote their stance.

A Google representative already stated, "We regret that Viacom continues to drag out this case.  The court here, like every other court to have considered the issue, correctly ruled that the law protects online services like YouTube, which remove content when notified by the copyright holder that it is unauthorized.  We will strongly defend the court’s decision on appeal."

Regardless of how this plays out, though, we’ll probably hear still more about the YouTube-Viacom conflict at a later date due to yet another appeal.

One interesting financial note: Google spent $100 million defending itself the first time around.