The
suit will stake a claim to damages of up to $150,000 for each
example of copyright infringement; examples are believed to run
into their thousands.
"Grouper and Bolt cannot reasonably expect to build their
business on the backs of our content and the hard work of our
artists and songwriters without permission and without compensating
the content creators," a Universal spokesman said.
Universal has been the most aggressive of the four major music
labels in its pronouncements on protecting its copyrights. Chief
executive Doug Morris has in the past said that sites such as
YouTube are mass infringers of copyright and vowed to take
action.
The company, which is owned by French firm Vivendi, said that it
had forged a "strategic partnership" with YouTube last week just
before that business was bought by Google. That deal licensed
people who posted videos to YouTube to use Universal's music
catalogue as a soundtrack.
"UMG broadly embraces the power and creativity of user-generated
content, allowing users to incorporate music from UMG’s recorded
music catalogue into the videos they create and upload onto
YouTube," said a Universal statement last week. "UMG and its
artists will be compensated not just for UMG produced videos but
also for the unique, user created content that incorporates UMG
music."
Bolt said that it adopts a policy of taking down copyright
infringing material when it is notified about it. "There's no
question that people upload copyrighted content from time to time
and occasionally we receive official notices to remove content and
we do," Bolt chief executive and co-founder Aaron Cohen told news
agency Reuters. Bolt is attempting to agree a licensing deal with
Universal, the agency said.
Sony Pictures agreed to buy Grouper earlier this summer for $65
million and Universal's claim reserves the right to add Sony to its
suit.
It has been thought till now that 'safe harbour' protections
would protect video sites which take down copyrighted material once
they are informed of it, but Universal's suit could challenge that,
potentially setting an explosive precedent if successful.
