England's Football Association Premier League Ltd. and independent music publisher Bourne Co., are hitting Google and YouTube with a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging massive copyright infringement and encouraging other content owners whose videos have appeared on YouTube to join the suit.

"Defendants are pursuing a deliberate strategy of engaging in, permitting, encouraging and facilitating massive copyright infringement on the YouTube Web site," the lawsuit states.

The complaint, filed Friday in New York federal court, alleges that YouTube has purposely refused to remove copyrighted works from its site or employ "readily available technology" to prevent the infringement. Google, which bought the site in November for $1.65 billion, encourages YouTube to continue allowing copyrighted works to be posted by users, the lawsuit claims.

A spokesman for Google could not be immediately reached for comment.

The plaintiffs allege that YouTube and Google are able to identify copyrighted material and remove it as well as employ a filter system to prevent posting of infringing material but have failed to do so.
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"From what I understand, YouTube will provide filtering to parties who are willing to license their content to YouTube on terms that are acceptable to YouTube," said the plaintiffs' lead attorney, William Hart of Proskauer Rose in New York. "YouTube is not offering filtering to content across the board. Although they say it's coming to larger copyright owners, they already acknowledge they have this technology for a preferred group, but they're not doing that, and should, for other copyright owners."

The Premier League is the most popular division of English soccer and is viewed in 204 countries. According to the complaint, several infringing clips have been posted almost immediately after games, including April matches between Manchester United and Everton and Middlesbrough and Tottenham.

Bourne claims its musical works are frequently posted on the site, including Jimmy Durante singing "Inka Dinka Doo" and Diana Krall singing "Let's Fall in Love." Many of Bourne's compositions allegedly were still posted at the time of the lawsuit's filing.

Hart said YouTube has taken more than seven days to take down infringing material even though the Digital Millennium Copyright Act requires an expeditious removal.

"If they're told this particular work is infringing, they take it down," he said. "Then, if someone reposts it, we're starting all over again. Once someone tries to post it again, it should be filtered out rather than going over the whole exercise again."

In the case of the Premier League, Hart said it has become a full-time job for someone at the organization to send notices to YouTube on a daily basis.

The proposed class action, he said, includes "any copyright owner who has not given any authorization for their content to appear" on YouTube. A Web site has been established, www.youtubeclassaction.com, to recruit potential members of the suit.

Hart believes that the case most likely will be consolidated with the recent lawsuit filed against YouTube and Google by Viacom. A separate infringement case against YouTube brought by photojournalist Robert Tur is pending in California.

In the Viacom case, filed in March in New York federal court, the media conglomerate is seeking more than $1 billion in damages and has identified more than 100,000 copyrighted clips posted without permission.

In an answer filed Monday, Google cites the safe harbor provisions in the DMCA as a defense.

"By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Viacom's complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression," the defendants said in the response. "Google and YouTube respect the importance of intellectual property rights and not only comply with their safe harbor obligations under the DMCA but go well above and beyond what the law requires."

Google is making a similar argument in the Tur case.

In a statement released after Google's answer was filed, Viacom said: "This response ignores the most important fact of the suit, which is that YouTube does not qualify for safe harbor protection under the DMCA. It is obvious that YouTube has knowledge of infringing material on their site, and they are profiting from it."

Superior Court Judge James Mulvihill immediately revoked the defendant's bail and ordered him held pending sentencing in New Brunswick on June 29.

Cibelli looked back at his father, Paul Cibelli Sr., before being led away in handcuffs.

Outside court, Silva's parents, Moises and Elvira Silva, said they were pleased with the verdict and thanked the jury, the judge and Middlesex County First Assistant Prosecutor William Lamb, who presented the case against the defendant.

At one point, the victim's mother broke into tears. ''We were sure all the time that he was the murderer,'' the victim's father said. ''In my heart, I knew this.''

During a three-week trial, Lamb said Cibelli was angry that Silva was planning to leave him and plotted her murder.

The defendant beat the woman with a roofer's staple gun and then strangled her, on a second-floor deck at the Robert Place house they shared with Cibelli's father in South Plainfield.
Cibelli subsequently wrapped the victim in trash bags and dumped her body somewhere in Pennsylvania, Lamb said.

Police began an investigation after the woman's remains were discovered at a recycling center in Philadelphia, Lamb said.

He credited Sgt. Ivan Scott of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office and Detective Gene Bataille and Sgt. James Foran, both South Plainfield police officers, with solving the crime.

Cibelli's attorney, Alan Zegas, said his client had no role in the slaying. Cibelli did not testify during the trial.

He faces 30 years to life in prison when he is sentenced at the Middlesex County Courthouse.

Marshall, 33, was found dead at his home by police responding to a call. Marshall had been stabbed more than 30 times.

A breakthrough in the case came in September 2006 when the FBI Laboratory's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) matched Jackson to DNA recovered on the linoleum floor of Marshall's residence. Jackson was in prison on an unrelated charge.

Pakistan's Supreme Court on Monday suspended a judicial inquiry into misconduct charges against the country's top judge that triggered weeks of nationwide protests.

The court ordered the suspension as it took up a petition from Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry challenging his sacking, a decision likely to embarrass President Pervez Musharraf's government.

Musharraf suspended Chaudhry on March 9 on allegations of misconduct and abuse of authority, sparking a wave of massive protests by opposition parties and lawyers who branded it an attack on the independence of the judiciary.

The misconduct allegations were being investigated by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), a panel of five senior judges, but Chaudhry argued that it was not competent to try him.

"The SJC proceedings have been stayed," Tariq Mehmud, a lawyer for Chaudhry, told AFP after the hearing.

Mehmud said the Supreme Court had demanded that Chaudhry's case should be heard by a full court comprising all of its judges.

"The SJC would not hear the case until Supreme Court decides the petition of chief justice," Chaudhry's main lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan said.

"The court's order shows that the proceedings so far of the Supreme Judicial Council were unconstitutional," Ahsan added.

The SJC was scheduled to resume its proceedings on Wednesday.

Government lawyers said the decision showed the judiciary was independent.

"I am not unhappy over the order," Malik Mohammad Qayyum, a senior lawyer representing the government, told reporters.

"We are saying from the beginning that judges are independent and let them decide the case," Qayyum said.

Asked if the government would appeal against the suspension order, he said there could not be an appeal against an interim order and added that when a full court assembled, it could decide the matter.

The decision comes in the wake of a judicial crisis that poses one of the most serious threats to the eight-year rule of Musharraf, an army general who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

Opposition parties and lawyers have staged anti-Musharraf rallies on each of Chaudhry's eight appearances before the council in the past two months.

In a 132-point petition the chief justice also challenged the composition of the council, the decision to send him on forced leave, and the misconduct charges, lawyer Ahsan said.

A massive rally was held in the eastern city of Lahore on Sunday where Chaudhry was cheered by tens of thousands of supporters.

Opponents accuse Musharraf of sacking Chaudhry illegally in an attempt to weaken the judiciary to make it easier for him to remain in charge of the army after 2007, when he should give up the position.

Musharraf is also expected to seek re-election by the outgoing parliament for another five years ahead of national polls due to be held late this year or in early 2008 -- a move that could spark other legal challenges.

MOSCOW -- A court Monday found the principal of a village school guilty of using bootleg Microsoft software and ordered him to pay a fine of about $195 in a case that was cast by Russian media as a battle between a humble educator and an international corporation.

The trial of Alexander Ponosov, who was charged with violating intellectual property rights by using classroom computers with pirated versions of the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office software installed, has attracted wide attention.

Russian officials frequently allege that foreign governments, including the U.S., are meddling in Russia's internal affairs, and Russian media reports have portrayed the case as that of a Western corporation bringing its power to bear on one man _ in this case, a principal who also teaches history and earns $360 a month.

Microsoft, however, has said repeatedly it has nothing to do with the charges, which were brought by Russian prosecutors in the Ural Mountains region where Ponosov's school is located.

The case "was initiated by Russian authorities under Russian law," the company said in an e-mailed statement after the verdict. "Microsoft neither initiated nor has any plans to bring any action against Mr. Ponosov."

Prosecutor Natalya Kurdoyakova said in televised remarks that Ponosov knew he was violating the law "and illegally used these programs in computer classes."

Ponosov has maintained his innocence, saying that the computers at the school came with the software already installed.

"I had no idea it wasn't licensed," Ponosov told The Associated Press by telephone. He said that he planned to file an appeal.

"Prosecutors made a lot of mistakes starting from the moment they checked the computers," he said.

Ponosov was found guilty of causing $10,000 in damage to the company, RIA-Novosti quoted judge Valentina Tiunova as saying.

In February, the court in the Vereshchaginsky district of the Perm region threw out the case, saying Ponosov's actions were "insignificant" and presented no danger to society. Both Ponosov and prosecutors vowed to appeal in hopes of forcing a clear decision, with Ponosov saying he wanted a full acquittal.

In March, the regional court ordered Ponosov to stand trial a second time.

Despite government pledges to crack down on Russia's rampant piracy, the country remains the No. 2 producer of bootlegged software, movies and music after China.

In April, the Bush administration put Russia, China and 10 other nations on a "priority watch list," which will subject them to extra scrutiny and could eventually lead to economic sanctions if the administration decides to bring trade cases before the World Trade Organization.

The designation was made in an annual report the administration is required to provide to Congress each year that highlights the problems U.S. companies are facing around the world with copyright piracy. The report said that the United States will be closely watching to see how Russia fulfills the commitments it made to upgrading copyright protection as part of a U.S.-Russia accord reached last year which was seen as a key milestone in Russian efforts to join the WTO.

Assistant Grayson County District Attorney Mike Mitchell said Secret Service officials found a number of pictures of what appeared to be a young child in sexual activity with adults.

Brooks’ guilty plea means he will have to register as a sex offender for life. The nature of the crime means Brooks will have to serve half of whatever sentence he might get before being eligible for parole. 

Among the deals announced, McDermott represented Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated in March with respect to its equity commitment in connection with the proposed $45 billion leveraged buy out acquisition of TXU Corp., the Texas energy company.  The transaction represents the largest leveraged buyout in history, and put McDermott among the top 10 legal advisors for global utility deals and private equity deals for the first quarter as well.
These rankings reflect the continued momentum of McDermott's M&A practice which for all 2006 was among the top 20 most active practices in the U.S. according to both Bloomberg and Mergermarket.

McDermott Will & Emery's Mergers & Acquisitions Practice Group is a globally integrated team of corporate lawyers providing high-end M&A services to a broad range of clients around the world.  We represent clients in both friendly and contested public company acquisitions, proxy contests, stock and asset acquisitions and divestitures and joint ventures. We have extensive experience in complex cross-border transactions and work closely with members of our tax, antitrust and other key practice groups.