A US Judge has rejected a request to turn a copyright case into a class action suit filed by copyright owners against Google’s YouTube for posting material without their permission.
The lawsuit was filed in 2007 by a group of plaintiffs including UK’s professional soccer league and the National Music Publishers Association and individual music publishers.
US District Judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan denied a motion for class certification by individual publishers in the long-running lawsuit over videos and music posted on YouTube.
Stanton said in his ruling: "The suggestion that a class action of these dimensions can be managed with judicial resourcefulness is flattering, but unrealistic."
The judge said generally speaking, copyright claims are poor candidates for class-action treatment.
He said: "Each claim presents particular factual issues of copyright ownership, infringement, fair use, and damages, among others."
Earlier this year, Stanton dismissed Viacom’s copyright infringement lawsuit against Google, which alleged that the search major is publishing its clips from shows on YouTube without its permission.