landmarkeducation.com Landmark Education, an educational personal development provider (and a cult, according to critics) is suing Google for copyright infringement over a critical French documentary posted to Google Video.

It was bound to happen. Barely a month after Google purchased former online-video rival YouTube, the search engine giant disclosed in its most recent quarterly SEC 10-Q filing that it's being sued for copyright infringement.

MediaPost reports: "The lawsuit, filed in France, seeks $192,465 (€150,000) in damages"

The SEC filing didn't give details, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation has gotten involved on Google's behalf. According to EFF's case backgrounder, Google is being sued by Landmark Education, which describes itself as "a global educational enterprise offering The Landmark Forum and graduate courses," and claims that more than 160,000 people per year participate in Landmark's courses.

Critics accuse Landmark of being a Scientology-style cult.

In 2004 the French news program "Pièces à Conviction" produced a documentary, "Voyage Au Pays Des Nouveaux Gourous" (Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus), which was strongly critical of Landmark. The film includes hidden camera footage from inside a Landmark Forum event in France, and from Landmark offices in France. It was widely distributed on many online video services, including Google Video and YouTube.

In an Oct. 6 letter to Google, Landmark claimed the documentary showed its copyrighted course materials without permission. EFF claims the film stayed within the bounds of fair use.

A Nov. 8 BusinessWeek article on this case speculates, "some copyright owners [may be] delaying legal claims against YouTube until Google completes [its YouTube] acquisition some time during the next few weeks. ...In [its SEC] filing, Google acknowledged it could face more copyright suits once the YouTube deal closes."

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