After Viacom now also the English Premier League has filed a federal class action copyright lawsuit in New York against Google’s YouTube. The lead plaintiffs in the suit filed Friday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York: the Football Association Premier League Limited (the English Premier League), and music publisher Bourne Co, who are represented by law firm Proskauer Rose LLP.
Google sent a response from general counsel Kent Walker, which reads, in part: “These suits simply misunderstand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act … Most content owners understand that we respect copyrights, we work every day to help them manage their content, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better.” Earlier Google also defended its case against Viacom.
One of the questions is: does showing (low quality) clips on YouTube hurt or help selling the video? If it hurts why are major broadcasters setting up their own ‘channels’ on YouTube? To wet people’s appetites and generate new sales, one would argue. Or is YouTube just an easy prey have been acquired by Google? Viacom is suing, but its sister company CBS has joined them. Are we all confused?
