Judge puts kibosh on YouTube copyright damages dogpile

The world can't sue YouTube for copyright damages---especially if they never registered the copyrights, according to a U.S. district judge.

The ruling (Techmeme), issued by U.S District Judge Louis Stanton July 3, curbs a class action suit brought by a laundry list of foreign entities looking for YouTube damages. The suit rides shotgun with Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against Google over YouTube copyright infringement.

Download Judge Stanton's rulling (PDF)

Stanton ruled that plaintiffs couldn't request damages for videos that didn't have U.S. copyrights attached to them.

The ruling, however, doesn't address the elephant in courtroom---whether YouTube should have allowed the videos to be posted in the first place. That issue is front and center in this class action and the Viacom suits. Neither trial has been scheduled.