Last month, the FA Premier League filed a class action lawsuit against YouTube for (in my words) “deliberately encouraging users to upload and share short video clips of goals, football skills and controversial incidents to generate public attention and boost traffic.”

The big news this week (or more accurately, Thursday 8th June) is that along with the FA Premier League and Bourne Music, the two parties who filed the initial lawsuit, Cherry Lane Music, Federation Francaise de Tennis (FFT – the French Tennis Association) and Ligue de Football Professionel (LFP – French Ligue 1) have jumped on board the class action lawsuit against YouTube as well.

We’ve discussed this before, and I proposed then that the FA Premier League should consider a paid subscription model to allow football fans to view video clips from all games for a monthly fee. By taking the initiative themselves they would not only attract (and thus take away from YouTube) a considerable number of football fans, but they would also be building a scalable model for other football associations to follow suit and making money while helping fans.

Currently the FAPL seems intent on protecting its copyright as well as that of the member clubs, but seemingly has no idea how to deal with fans who do NOT get the opportunity to catch all the highlights on TV or go watch the actual matches. Individual clubs (such as Manchester United) do have a paid subscription model in place that lets them provide club-related football video footage on their site in exchange for a small monthly fee.

It works, and if the folks at ManUtd.com were better at marketing this membership service, I’m sure that more people would join (Mark, if you read this, consider this an open offer