I am afraid that I can't quite get my head around the English Premier League suing YouTube in the States, as part of a class action, which has reportedly now attracted the support of the French Tennis Federation and the French Football League amongst others. Actually, the others is signigicant because it includes music publishers Bourne Co. They all claim their copyright has been infringed by YouTube and the claims extends to Google, as YouTube's parent company.
The English Premier League is a limited liability company. It's wealth would appear to be built entirely on the revenues it obtains from televising games, so it should be no surprise that they should seek to protect their most valuable assets, but litigation in a foreign jurisdiction is likely to be both expensive and high risk.
The claimants' lawyers have created a website promoting their claim called "YouTube Class Action.com" which makes for interesting reading (if you are a lawyer, I guess) and the full Complaint document as filed at court is here. It's a bit like fighting fire with fire given YouTube's high profile and very much a sign of things to come in the litigation world.
I'll keep an eye on this. There's no sign of a defence being filed yet and that will give us a very good idea of the stance YouTube will take.
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