YouTube legal challenges continue to grow

English soccer's Premier League and an independent music publisher launched a lawsuit against Google Inc.'s YouTube on Friday over copyright infringement, the second major legal action against the popular online video sharing site in the last two months.

The class action lawsuit, filed by the Football Association Premier League Ltd. and music publisher Bourne Co., alleges YouTube "wilfully violated the intellectual property rights" of the complainants.

According to the complaint, several infringing clips have been posted immediately after games, including April matches involving top teams Manchester United, Everton and Tottenham. Bourne claims its musical works— including Diana Krall singing Let's Fall in Love and Jimmy Durante singing Inka Dinka Doo — are frequently posted on the site.

The legal action follows a similar suit filed in March by entertainment conglomerate Viacom Inc., the owner of MTV, Comedy Central and other networks.

The Premier League class-action also came the same day NBC Universal filed papers in support of Viacom in a court case involving Los Angeles News Service operator Robert Tur, who sued YouTube in July for allowing its users to use his footage of trucker Reginald Denny being beaten during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

While NBC Universal has itself not filed suit against YouTube, the company filed a "friend of the court" brief arguing the website "actively manipulates and modifies the content in ways that the uploading user clearly does not, including copying, reformatting and adapting the works … further disseminating them."

"In operating its own commercial website, YouTube engages in activities that are reserved to the copyright holder," the filing argues.

In a response to Viacom's suit filed in federal court last Monday, Google argued YouTube already goes above and beyond what is required under the U.S. Digital Medium Copyright Act, which gives web hosts protection from copyright laws so long as they comply with requests to remove unauthorized material.

YouTube said it co-operates with copyright holder requests to remove unauthorized material from its site.

But Viacom argued in March that YouTube has almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programming, and in February Viacom asked YouTube to remove 100,000 clips after negotiations to allow YouTube to offer authorized Viacom content fell apart.

YouTube also faces potential legal action abroad, after Thailand's army-backed government said on Monday it plans to sue the site over clips it said were insulting toward the country's reigning monarch.

Thailand has blocked access to YouTube since the first clip about King Bhumibol Adulyadej appeared in April.

A spokesman for the country's Information Ministry told the Agence France-Presse the country is considering laying charges of lèse-majesté — insulting the monarchy — which carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison in Thailand.

YouTube — which Google bought last fall for $1.6 billion US — is one of several popular sites dependent on user-generated content that has run into difficulties controlling material appearing on its site.

Last week, visitors of the popular news sharing site Digg revolted and briefly shut down the site after it attempted to remove posts detailing information needed to remove digital rights management software from high-definition DVDs.