Premier League sues YouTube

The FA Premier League has taken legal action against popular file-sharing website YouTube for "rampant" copyright infringement.

YouTube, bought by Google last year for more than $3bn, has been accused by the football organisation of encouraging footage to be viewed on its site.

According to court documents filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the FA Premier League and independent music publisher Bourne Co are seeking to stop the "unauthorized and uncompensated use of their creative and other copyrighted works and those of all other similarly situated copyright holders on the YouTube.com website".

The pair accuse YouTube of pursuing a deliberate strategy of engaging in, permitting, encouraging, and facilitating massive copyright infringement in order to build traffic to the site.

In separate legal action launched in March, Viacom - owner of MTV and Nickelodeon- alleged that about 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes had been uploaded onto YouTube.

Google has said Viacom's complaint "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression".

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