• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, May 7, 2007

The lawsuits are piling up for video-sharing site YouTube.

A United Kingdom soccer organization, the Football Association Premier League, along with music publisher Bourne, have just sued the site for copyright violations. The groups' 39-page complaint, like Viacom's lawsuit filed a few months ago, accuses Google's YouTube of "engaging in, permitting encouraging and facilitating massive copyright infringement."

"The presence of large amounts of valuable intellectual property generates interest in that website, resulting in public and media attention and increased traffic (which, in turn, increase YouTube's advertising revenues and projected value as a site, platform, or destination)," the lawsuit asserts. The law firm representing the two newest complainants is also seeking other potential plaintiffs for a class-action suit.

Like Viacom, the companies suing seem particularly annoyed because they believe that Google has the ability to stop piracy on the site, but chooses not to do so. "Recent events have confirmed that defendants are able to identify copyrighted material on the YouTube website -- and to remove such material if they wish -- so long as victims of defendants' infringing conduct agree to pay defendants to do so by authorizing the otherwise infringing exploitation of their works," charges the complaint.

It's unclear what "recent events" the lawsuit is referring to, but even if YouTube has the ability to prevent copyright infringement on the site, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act doesn't appear to require the company to do so. Rather, the DMCA arguably protects Google/YouTube from copyright infringement claims as long as the site removes infringing content upon request.

Of course, the law has some grey areas. One of the biggest unsettled questions is whether YouTube has directly profited from infringing clips; if so, the DMCA might not protect it from liability.

Regardless of the legalities, from a business point of view, the lawsuit is somewhat perplexing. It's hard to imagine that YouTube has hurt the audience for soccer games, especially since the site limits clips to no more than 10 minutes. Instead, it appears at least equally plausible that the brief clips available on YouTube are helping the sport, by drawing in people who otherwise wouldn't have otherwise watched the game.