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Universal sues Grouper, Bolt
Music giant accuses video-sharing sites of allowing their users to swap pirated versions of its musicians' videos.
Although last-minute licensing deals and its acquisition by Google may have spared YouTube from the legal wrath of the world's largest music company, fellow video sites Grouper and Bolt were not so lucky.
Grouper
Universal Music Group sued Grouper and Bolt for copyright infringement this week, accusing the video-sharing sites of allowing their users to swap pirated versions of music videos from its artists like U2, the Killers, Mariah Carey, and Kanye West.
Universal said it is seeking damages of as much as $150,000 for each incident of copyright infringement, saying that thousands of music videos were being viewed on both sites.
"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.
Bolt
Bolt CEO and cofounder Aaron Cohen told Reuters that his site removes copyrighted material as soon as it is notified and hopes to reach a licensing agreement with Universal Music.
"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," he said.
Grouper could not be reached for comment. Sony Pictures Entertainment agreed in August to buy Grouper, based in Sausalito, California. Universal's suit made clear that maintains the right to add Sony Pictures to the suit.
Universal compared the "mass infringement" by Grouper and Bolt with the practices of original file-sharing sites like Kazaa, which settled the music industry's lawsuits against it for $115 million.
Grouper and Bolt are smaller rivals to YouTube.com, which Google has agreed for $1.65 billion in an all-stock transaction.
The acquisition came just weeks after Universal Music CEO Doug Morris hinted that YouTube could face a copyright infringement lawsuit for music videos uploaded to its site.
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