The Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit yesterday against MySpace, the popular social networking Web site, for allowing users to upload and download songs and music videos.


The suit, which also names MySpace’s corporate parent, the News Corporation, comes as the recording industry contends with how to exploit its copyrighted material online. The issue has taken on more importance as services built around user-generated content become popular and generate advertising revenue.


The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, is seen as part of a strategy by Universal to test provisions of a federal law that provides a “safe harbor” to Internet companies that follow certain procedures to filter out copyrighted works. The law requires sites to remove such content after being notified by the copyright holder.


If Universal can win in court, it is likely to gain leverage in negotiating licensing terms with user-driven services — just at the moment that those services are attracting deep-pocketed partners.

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