U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton has dismissed some damage claims in a class action copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube and Google led by The Football Association Premier League, ruling the copyright holders of foreign works can’t sue Google for punitive damages arising from those materials’ distribution on YouTube—unless those works are registered for copyright in the United States. However, the judge did rule that if the the copyright holder prevail in their infringement suit, they could seek punitive damages for live broadcasts distributed via YouTube, under a “live broadcast exemption” in U.S. copyright law.
