UTube sues YouTube

Remember that company Universal Tube that owns the domain UTube.com? A release on one of the press wires says that UTube is now suing the video sharing site, demanding that YouTube stop using their name. Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation of Perrysburg, Ohio, has filed a lawsuit in the US District court in Toledo.

As mentioned before (UTube, YouTube?), UTube is a business selling tubes, pipes, “tube mills” and other machinery. They complained a few weeks back that the site was being downed by heavy traffic as users looking for YouTube landed on their site instead, presumably by typing the wrong domain name. This downtime cost them a great deal of money in lost customers, they said. How big was the traffic spike? They claim unique visitors went from 1,500 to over 2 million per month. UTube has been forced to move hosts 5 times to cope with the traffic, with bandwidth bills increasing by a factor of 100, they claim. They registered the domain way back in 1996, so they have every claim to it - what’s more, they also argue that the UTube name is strongly tied to their identity.

Most commentators expected a music company to begin the first major lawsuit against YouTube: who would have thought a tubing supplier was the most likely candidate? Of course, the music labels were given a reason not to sue when YouTube offered them a part of the company immediately before being acquired by Google. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time YouTube has been sued: that honor goes to LA journalist and helicopter pilot Robert Tur, who’s pursuing legal action over unauthorized use of his footage (see YouTube Sued).