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YouTube Copyright Lawsuit Grows

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

August 7, 2007, 10:21 AM

Members of the National Music Publishers Association said Tuesday that they planned to join a lawsuit against YouTube over copyright infringement, signaling more legal trouble for Google's video site.

The original lawsuit was filed by British Soccer organization Premier League in May, and sought class-action status. Since then, music publisher Bourne has joined, and Robert Tur, owner of the Los Angeles News Service also plans to join the suit shortly.

While YouTube has settled with all four major record labels, it is still finding itself fighting to keep an ever-increasing number of copyright infringement cases out of court. Music publishers also want a slice of ad revenues, but royalty rates have been a major sticking point.

Google must deal with both: while the labels own the recordings to the songs, publishers own the copyrights to the actual lyrics and melodies. Thus, regardless of its deals with the labels, it is still technically infringing on artists' copyrights.

"Many song writers and music publishers view YouTube as a promising promotional platform for connecting with their fans," Google said in a statement. "We are surprised and disappointed that the NMPA has elected to take this route."

The Mountain View, Calif. search company also argues that under current copyright law, it is the owner's responsibility to identify the infringing material.

Add a Comment (5 Comments)

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By PostDeals

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 10:43 PM

now we got NMPA outto get more $$$

Score: 0

By robmanic44

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 6:43 PM

Why is Google surprised? It's not as if they don't comprehend that lawsuits are the price you pay for having deep pockets. These sort of stories have become incredibly boring.

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 1:35 PM

I havent purchased a CD in years, except when it's a Christmas gift for other people.

Basically I listen to satellite radio whenever I want to hear music. I like hearing new songs all the time instead of beating old ones to death like everyone else does.

Score: 0

By PatrynXX

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 7:22 PM

Only cd's I get is from yourmusic dot com. Only band I've found that I've really liked that I can't find in the states is Poets of the Fall. When I last checked Itunes didn't have it, but I guess Itunes in Finland did. Makes it difficult to buy the albums. But old allofmp3 had one and another site had the new one and I'm ready to import those. Most bands are usually boring and don't know much about a tune. POTF completely different. POTF video's are also on youtube , but not much.

Score: 0

By ogman

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 12:03 PM

This just gets sillier all the time. The more of this garbage I hear the less music I buy. Actually, I stopped buying music a few months ago and used the saved cash to buy a new video card. Thank you RIAA/SoundExchange!

Score: 0

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