Los Angeles — As it fights against allegations of copyright infringement, Google’s YouTube on Tuesday claimed a small legal victory in the website’s everlasting campaign not to have its pants sued off by copyright owners.
A group of sports and music copyright holders, led by the UK-based Football Association Premier League, had argued that foreign works were exempt from any registration requirements under the U.S. Copyright Act.
A U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton, of the Southern District of New York, dismissed some claims for damages in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by a lengthy roster of sports and music copyright holders, led by the UK-based Football Association Premier League against Google Inc and its video-sharing Web site YouTube.com but left open the possibility that non-U.S. based rights owners could seek damages for live broadcasts, if they prevail.
Stanton wrote that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 “bars statutory damages for all foreign and domestic works not timely registered.”
Copyright law bars statutory damages for unregistered works, except for live broadcasts of “sporting events, concerts, theatrical presentations and news and public affairs programs” if the copyright owner notifies the infringer at least 48 hours before the work is transmitted, Judge Stanton wrote in the decision.
The court rejected the plaintiffs’ request for punitive damages. “There is no condition in which punitive damages are available under the Copyright Act of 1976,” Stanton wrote.
The judge also said that they may recover lost profits and disgorgement of profits realized by YouTube and Google on any claims they win at trial, plaintiffs attorney Louis Solomon said.
“It is more important to get the live broadcast covered because our lead plaintiff, that is their whole business,” Solomon, of Proskauer Rose LLP, said.
“The class is hugely benefited,” Solomon said of the ruling. “Concert promoters, boxing promoters, French tennis, Scottish soccer — all of that now gets protected with statutory damages.”
The plaintiffs’ recovery could total billions of dollars if they prevail on most claims, Solomon said.
The soccer league is division of a class action group that includes, The National Music Publishers Association and Bob Tur, the celebrated videographer who recorded many famous events of the Los Angeles riots, including the hot O.J. Simpson police pursuit in the early 1990s. He was the first person to file a suit against YouTube for copyright infringement.
Google attorney Adam Barea called the damages claims dismissed by the court “baseless from the start.”
“We are very pleased with the court’s decision and will continue to vigorously defend against the remaining baseless claims in the case,” Barea said in a statement.
It is unclear as to how the judge’s decision will affect the rest of the plaintiffs. The work by Tur and the NMPA, both based in the United States, are presumably covered by U.S. copyright law.
Lawyers from the New York firm Proskauer Rose, which represents the class, did not immediately respond to an interview request.
Viacom, owner of movie studio Paramount and MTV Networks, filed a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube and its deep-pocketed parent, Google, in 2007, for what the suit described as video piracy of Viacom-owned content.
The case is The Football Association Premier League et al vs. YouTube Inc and Google Inc, Case No. 07-3582, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.