Journalist Sues YouTube

YouTube' celebration of its 100 million videos per day milestone was followed by a copyright infringement lawsuit over video fragments posted on the site. With in excess of 65.000 videos uploaded on a daily basis to its site, the undisputed leader of the Internet video search was a step away from a lawsuit, as accurately filtering such a volume of videos to effectively dispose of copyrighted materials is virtually impossible. Critics of the video sharing service have warned repeatedly of the uploading of copyright protected materials and now Robert Tur, a reporter and owner of Los Angeles News Service, filled a suit against YouTube alleging that it was hosting copyrighted footage. One of the videos shared features footage of the police abuse against trucker Reginald Denny in the eve of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

In response, YouTube has argued that it specifically prohibits uploading of videos that are under the incidence of copyright law, but is not responsible in any way for the presence of such materials on his servers.

Tur is asking YouTube for no less than $150.000 for each of the submitted video materials, but say that he has only identified a few infringements and that the actual extent of the damages is yet to be determined.