Myspace gets sued

Slashdot It! Universal Music Group late Friday sued News Corp.'s MySpace unit, alleging the social networking site has allowed its users to post millions of Universal's songs and videos onto the Internet in violation of copyright law.

The lawsuit alleges that MySpace encourages copyright infringement by taking proactive measures such as reformatting music to better suit Web browsers and offering means to share the material with others.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, seeks damages of $150,000 per song or video posted to the collection of Web sites, and identifies 60 alleged copyright violations. Moreover, UMG estimates there are tens of millions of songs and videos presently on MySpace pages that may infringe its copyrights.

Aside from damages, the suit also seeks an injunction to keep MySpace from distributing copyright-infringing material.

The UMG litigation highlights the tensions between major entertainment companies and sites like MySpace and YouTube, which Google Inc recently purchased for $1.65 billion, that allow users to freely-upload content. As a result of the freewheeling upload policies, the sites are usually rife with bootlegged material, as even their owners admit.