Vivendi Universal Music Group is suing two video-sharing web sites over copyright infringement of Universal-owned music videos and songs.

Universal filed two lawsuits in United States District Court late Monday against Grouper Networks, which operates the Grouper.com site, and Bolt, which operates Bolt.com.

Seeking injunctive relief and damages in the sum of $150,000 per infringement, the world’s largest recording company stated the web sites are “copying, reformatting, distributing, and creating” music videos and songs developed by artists from the label.

“I don’t think this will get to the point where it is prosecuted in the courts,” said senior analyst Phil Leigh of Tampa-based Inside Digital Media. “I think they will come to an accommodation to satisfy Universal.”

If the case does go to trial, it will be the first time a major media company has sued an online company for video file-sharing rather than music. The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) could save the web sites, however, from facing the large infringement sums Vivendi is demanding.

Under the “safe harbor” section of the DMCA of 1998, online music sites have limited liability for what the actions of their users.

Left out of the lawsuit is the largest video-sharing web site to date, YouTube.com (recently acquired by Google for $1.65 billion).

Last week, YouTube.com struck a deal with Vivendi Universal to allow file sharing of Universal artists, with some blocked content, in exchange for advertising revenues (see Deals Portend GooTube). Warner Music Group signed a similar agreement with YouTube in September.

“YouTube could complain if they are paying Universal for distribution of their content and then Universal let’s others distribute their content for free. It’s not fair for them [YouTube],” said Mr. Leigh. “Universal can’t give special treatment to one group.”

Sony acquired Grouper in August for $65 million, but has not been named in the lawsuit yet. Universal, the music group of French telecommunications and media company Vivendi, reserved the right to add Sony’s film studio as a defendant in the future though (see Sony Acquires Grouper for $65M).

Can’t Shake off Lawsuits

Universal stated in the lawsuit specific examples of copyright infringement for each site. One example was that Mariah Carey’s video “Shake it Off” had been viewed more than 50,000 times on Grouper without any payment to the music group.

One example against Bolt stated Mary J. Blige’s “Enough Cryin’” video had been viewed over 1,000 times.

Most recording companies have won their day in court against free file-sharing sites like Napster, Aimster, Grokster, Kazaa, and Morpheus. But all these sites were sued primarily for file sharing of music MP3 files.

This will be the first time a mostly music company sues a site for allowing primarily video copyrights to be infringed. If the trial goes forward, it will be an uphill battle for Vivendi.

“The web sites will probably use the ‘safe harbor’ exemption of the DMCA,” said Mr. Leigh. “There are ways to destroy that point in court. One way is to demonstrate that Grouper or Bolt is somehow inducing the consumer to violate copyrights. But it will be pretty hard to demonstrate that.”

Phone calls to recording companies and web sites involved in the case were not returned.

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