The Wall Street Journal ran a nonchalant 6 sentence article(B5) about copyright claims filed against the Google Video Service today on 11-9-06.  The Claims were disclosed by Google in its recent quarterly report filed the day before.

Certain entities have also filed copyright claims against us, alleging that features of certain of our products, including Google Web Search, Google News, Google Video, Google Image Search, and Google Book Search, infringe their rights. In addition, our planned acquisition of YouTube may also subject us to additional copyright claims upon the closing of the transaction. Adverse results in these lawsuits may include awards of damages and may also result in, or even compel, a change in our business practices, which could result in a loss of revenue for us or otherwise harm our business.

Google not being a company about disclosing any more than necessary remained true to their tactics and did not reveal the source of the claims.

Speculation

This raises the specter that the YouTube purchase will be a large target for additional claims.  Google is no stranger to copyright claims and has fought them on almost every major service they have offered from Web Search to Google news to books and images.

Additional story were some what delayed(showed up several hours after the WSJ hit the streets) in catching on but they did catch on and speculation has questioned whether Google has established a ‘$500 million YouTube defense fund‘ which was promptly rejected by Google’s Chief Executive.

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