YouTube faces more lawsuits

England's top soccer league, music publisher take aim at YouTube in federal lawsuit

England's top soccer league and an indie music publisher sued YouTube on Friday, saying the online video pioneer was engaging in widespread copyright infringement to bring traffic to the site.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan by The Football Association Premier League Ltd. and publisher Bourne Co., asked for unspecified damages and YouTube's profits from the material in question. It also sought class action status.

Named as defendants were YouTube Inc., YouTube LLC and YouTube's corporate parent, Google Inc., which bought YouTube in November for $1.76 billion.

YouTube's system of allowing users to access and post video clips has drawn copyright complaints in the past. Viacom Inc., the owner of MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and other cable networks, filed a $1 billion copyright lawsuit in March against the hugely popular video-sharing site and Google.

YouTube says it cooperates with all copyright holders and removes programming as soon as it is notified.

Google general counsel Kent Walker defended YouTube in a news release.