Legal News

Google Replaces Phil Beck With Mayer Brown Trio

By Peter Lattman

When Google filed its answer last spring to Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement complaint over YouTube clips, Michael Kwun, managing counsel for litigation at Google, boasted that the company hired superlawyer Phil Beck of Bartlit Beck (pictured, left)to represent them in the case. Beck is widely considered one of the nation’s top trial lawyers, having represented Bush in Florida during the 2000 election and Merck in many of its Vioxx cases.

Cooed Kwun: “We think the Bartlit Beck guys are incredible trial lawyers.”

Curious, then that Google recently replaced Phil Beck and his team of Bartlit Beck lawyers. Click here for the legal filing. The search-engine giant has hired a high-powered trio at Mayer Brown to try and fill Beck’s big shoes. Richard Ben-Veniste (pictured, right), Andy Schapiro, A. John P. Mancini. (”A. John P?” We love it!)

In March, Viacom sued Google (which acquired YouTube in 2006) for copyright infringement “on a massive scale.” The company — which owns Comedy Central, MTV and other media properties — had asked YouTube to take down 100,000 clips that it said infringed on its copyrights. The case is currently in pre-trial discovery phase.

After Viacom filed its suit, Proskauer and Bernstein Litowitz filed a lawsuit on behalf of other content providers — the Premier League and and Bourne Co. Here’s a copy of that complaint. That suit is being handled under the same judge in parallel with Viacom’s. Google has replaced Beck in that case, too.

So why was Beck replaced? We don’t know! Calls to Kwum, Beck and Schapiro have yet to be returned. We’ll let you know if we hear back.

Law Blog YouTube Video of the Day: We figure that whoever’s handling this high-stakes case is going to have some late nights, and possibly a little weekend work. In honor of that, we present you with this classic early-80s video, courtesy of Loverboy.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 17, 2008 (boomark / email).