Balcony TV (right), a popular Dublin-based internet production, has had its entire catalogue of short videos deleted from YouTube - without explanation and apparently in error.

The award-winning music TV series, which had 223 episodes, with band performances and interviews filmed off Dame Street and posted on YouTube, was accused of copyright infringement. Last month, talks between YouTube and Viacom over the online broadcasting of Viacom-related material broke down and Viacom demanded that 100,000 clips be removed from the massive online video library.

Balcony TV - which won Best Music Website at this year's Digital Media Awards - received an email three weeks ago from Google-owned YouTube saying Viacom had informed it of a copyright infringement relating to a video of Dublin band the Dirty 9s. Later, another music video was taken down by YouTube, and gradually the entire back catalogue was removed.

YouTube cited provisions of the US digital copyright law in taking the action.

"We think YouTube is a great website, but it's an unfortunate situation and we've got caught up in something, " Balcony TV's Stephen O'Regan told the Sunday Tribune. "It has to be a mistake. . . our content is the ideal of YouTube as it is all original material."

Another account of O'Regan's was also removed without explanation from the site.

O'Regan and his partners, Tom Millet and Pauline Freeman, are currently in the process of establishing their archive elsewhere online.

The argument with Viacom is one of several disputes YouTube is currently involved in over the copyright of uploaded material. The website has also been subpoenad by news corporation Fox Television, which is seeking information regarding videos on the website of Fox programmes, including The Simpsons and 24. Although YouTube reached agreements last year with Warner Music and Universal Music over uploaded videos featuring their material, it has yet to conclude negotiations over copyright disputes with film studios, some of which have been offered up to $100m by Google, YouTube's parent company.