Critics, however, are quick to point out in this Reuters article that the study only counts clips that have been removed from the site, and not the presumably numerous other copyrighted videos that remain on the site. Unsurprisingly, Viacom is one such critic, calling the methodology "flawed."

"The Vidmeter study undercounts the volume of copyrighted content on YouTube by a significant margin," a Viacom spokesman said in an e-mailed statement.

"Among other things, during the sample period, and even at present, many copyright owners had not sent take-down notices for their copyrighted material."

Vidmeter said it counted videos taken down by YouTube, with a page replaced with the content owner's name and not the myriad other clips that continue to reside on the service.

Clips of Viacom's "South Park" animation shows, for example, can still be found on the service, even after YouTube removed more than 100,000 clips.

Viacom said: "YouTube's site is designed in ways that make it impossible for rights holders to locate all of their copyrighted content, so even a robust take down notice program will miss significant amounts of copyrighted material.