While the lawsuit Viacom filed against YouTube is still pending, Google's affiliate has yet another difficult matter to settle on its hands. Mediaset, an Italian broadcasting company, has just announced that it is suing YouTube and Google, asking for €500 million, which means approximately $700 million, in damages for copyright infringements.

The company says that, in the aftermath of a survey performed by it on June 10, 2008, 4,643 videos and audio files belonging to Mediaset were found on YouTube without license. The files accounted for over 325 hours of material, which seriously crippled the overall revenues of the company. According to the claims made in court papers, Mediaset was deprived of more than 315,000 views during the days when its content was also displayed on YouTube. The estimative value of the damage incurred is of €500 million, "which covers only the emerging damages."

The advertising revenues that were lost because of YouTube and other damages will be calculated in the near future. They could increase the above-noted amount to about $1 billion, which, coincidentally, is the same sum that Viacom is asking. While YouTube was already forced by judges to hand over some data to the American company that filed a case against it, the compensations Viacom is to receive have not been put a price on yet.

"YouTube respects copyright holders and takes copyright issues very seriously," said a spokesperson. "There is no need for legal action and all the associated costs." Easy to say, but when big money is at stake, no one wants to miss the chance of increasing their revenues. All the more when legal support is available.

The Italian company, owned by the prime minister of the country, Silvio Berlusconi, has definitely no reason to back off. The legal action initiated by Mediaset, along with similar ones, could lead to YouTube's bankruptcy but also, more significantly, to the demise of user-supported online media, which has been faced lately with all sorts of toss-ups.