Universal, owned by French media giant Vivendi, filed the suit at the U.S. District Court Central District of California, Western Division. The lawsuit accuses MySpace of allowing users to upload videos illegally and taking part in the infringement by re-formatting the videos to be played back or sent to others. It follows several months of talks on music rights with News Corp.'s MySpace, which broke down late on Thursday, a source familiar with the discussions said. It claims thousands of links to music from Universal's biggest artists, including Jay-Z and Gwen Stefani, are widely available on MySpace, even ahead of their release to music stores. It estimated maximum statutory damages for each copyrighted work at $150,000.
In the case of YouTube, now owned by Google, Universal Music reached a licensing agreement to give the site and its users access to thousands of music videos. Other entertainment companies have been reluctant to take legal action against the likes of YouTube and MySpace because of the potential promotional exposure such sites may give to their artists. MySpace says it has more than 130 million users.
News of Universal's suit comes a day after News Corp. said Ross Levinsohn, the executive who led the $580-million acquisition of MySpace, had resigned from the company. Universal Music Chief Executive Doug Morris had publicly hinted that his company could take legal action against MySpace and YouTube back in September. He said at the time that the two sites combined owed his company 'tens of millions of dollars'. But the threat of legal action seemed less likely after Universal and other major record companies including Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music signed separate music video agreements with YouTube. Last month Universal Music sued two smaller video sharing sites, Sony Pictures Entertainment's Grouper and independent site Bolt.com.
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