Judge Dismisses Parts of YouTube Copyright Suit

YouTube caught a break yesterday, as a federal judge dismissed some claims for damages in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought against the video giant.

This decision wasn’t about Viacom versus YouTube. Rather, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that plaintiffs in a separate class-action lawsuit, including Cherry Lane Music Publishing and a Britain’s Premier League, could not request damages for non-U.S. copyrights that appeared on YouTube. Stanton wrote that U.S. law “bars statutory damages for all foreign and domestic works not timely registered” with the U.S. Copyright Office. Additionally, Stanton said that the plaintiffs could not seek punitive damages.

Viacom is not a member of this particular class action lawsuit group, though it is cooperating with it and parts of its case have been rolled into this case.