YouTube faces another 'Copyright infringement' lawsuit

Adding more to YouTube’s copyright infringement woes, England's top soccer league and an independent U.S. music publisher on Friday filed a lawsuit against YouTube, alleging the hugely popular video-sharing portal was engaging in massive copyright infringement to build traffic to the site.

The Football Association Premier League Ltd. better known as the English Premier League, and music publisher Bourne Co. have launched the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, accusing the video-sharing website of "knowingly” misappropriating its intellectual property by encouraging footage to be viewed on its site.

The lawsuit charges that YouTube, which was acquired by the Internet search giant Google Inc. last year, deliberately encourages massive copyright infringement on its website to generate public attention and boost traffic.

"Defendants, which own and operate the website YouTube.com, have knowingly misappropriated and exploited this valuable property for their own gain without payment or license to the owners of the intellectual property," the lawsuit said.

YouTube Inc., YouTube LLC and YouTube's corporate parent, Google Inc. were named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Plaintiffs, the premier league and the music company, in their lawsuit sought class action status and besides the unspecified damages asked for a disgorgement of profits made by the alleged actions.

The Premier League is the top division of English soccer, broadcasted in 204 countries worldwide and viewed by audiences estimated by the league at 2.59 billion, making it the world's most watched domestic league competition. Bourne Co. declares itself as one of the largest privately held international music publishers in the world.

The recent lawsuit comes nearly 2 months after the New York-based entertainment giant Viacom Media filed a suit with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging Google's San Bruno-based video-sharing site YouTube knowingly infringed Viacom copyrights "on a huge scale."

In its lawsuit, the American media conglomerate Viacom claimed unauthorized display of over 160,000 video clips picked collectively from MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon by YouTube.

Besides claiming "massive intentional copyright infringement" of its properties Viacom has demanded for an injunction preventing Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement. Viacom also seeks more than US $1 billion in damages and an injunction against further violations against YouTube and its parent company Google Inc.

However, in a response to Viacom's copyright infringement lawsuit, the online search leader has denied all claims, and late last month filed a confrontational official response in New York’s federal district court, contending that YouTube’s activities are legal.

In an 11-page response to Viacom, Google has said that Viacom’s claims were unfounded and argued that YouTube respects the importance of copyrights and goes above and beyond what is required under the 1998 law, known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which gives Web hosts protection from copyright lawsuits so long as they comply with requests to remove unauthorized material. It also asked for a judgment dismissing the complaint.

Now, responding to the Premier League and the U.S. music publisher’s lawsuit, Google general counsel Kent Walker said, "These suits simply misunderstand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which balances the rights of copyright holders against the need to protect internet communications and content.

"They threaten the way people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression over the internet."