YouTube faces a new round of lawsuits

Filed under: Business, Video, Web services, Google

YouTube faces a new round of lawsuits

by Brad Linder May 5th 2007

Viacom was just the beginning. Sure, the parent company of MTV and Comedy Central sued the bejesus out of YouTube for $1 billion in copyright infringement. But did you really think other entities would stay out of the action?

The Football Association Premier League is threatening legal action, as is the country of Thailand.

The Premiere League is ticked off at YouTube for the usual copyright infringing stuff. They say the video-sharing site is violating the league's distribution rights of soccer matches, and have set up a website to encourage other copyright holders to join their suit against YouTube's parent company Google.

As for Thailand, they're upset about video clips that made fun of the country's king. Thailand banned access to YouTube, and the site eventually agreed to block pages with the offensive videos from Thai users. While it seemed like that would be the end of the story, a Thai official now says the country plans to file a suit against Google.

Maybe this wasn't the best time for Google to start paying independent video producers. They might need to save the money.

Tags: english soccer league, EnglishSoccerLeague, lawsuit, thailand, viacom, youtube

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

glynne jones said 3:20PM on 5-05-2007

Err... Brad.. I realise you are american... but

(i) it is the PREMIER League

(ii)It is not a "soccer club"... it is the governing body... of the Premier League

Oo.. and by the way, it is the most watched league in the world... try sitting in a sports bar in Bangkok or Bombay or HK or NZ... and you'll realise that's why there are so many YouTube clips in Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish etc...

We even get three matches broadcast live every Saturday here in Canada.

KirbyMeister said 3:21PM on 5-05-2007

Is it me, or is YouTube everybody's favorite copyright lawsuit target?

Brad Linder said 3:25PM on 5-05-2007

Thanks Glynne, I've edited the story. I admit it, I'm ignorant when it comes to soccer/football. But to be honest I don't know that much about American sports either.

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