Viacom welcomes licensing opportunity from Apple TV

NEW YORK (Reuters) - MTV Networks owners Viacom Inc. VIAb.N said it "welcomes" the opportunity to license its content to Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) after the iPod maker signed a deal with top online video distributor YouTube.

Viacom sued Google Inc.'s (GOOG.O) YouTube in March for $1 billion charging it with "massive intentional copyright infringement" after finding hundreds of thousands of Viacom-owned videos uploaded to the service without its permission.

Apple said on Wednesday that YouTube's entire video catalog will be made available on its Apple TV set-top box device, which lets consumers view media and listen to music stored on computers directly on their television screens.

"We're always vigilant about protecting our copyrights," a Viacom spokesman said. "But we would welcome the opportunity to license our content to Apple as we do with all distributors," he said.

Viacom separately has a deal to sell some of its shows on Apple Inc.'s iTunes digital media store.