Two months after threatening to sue Rupert Murdoch's MySpace for copyright infringement, the world's biggest record company has called in the lawyers.

In the suit, Universal Music Group says News Corp. "knowingly and intentionally operated its business on the fiction that it has obtained the licenses it needs to exist from members that MySpace well knows are not the true copyright owners."

"We have been keeping UMG closely apprised of our industry-leading efforts to protect creators' rights, and it’s unfortunate they decided to file this unnecessary and meritless litigation. We provide users with tools to share their own work – we do not induce, encourage, or condone copyright violation in any way.”

"We proactively take steps to filter unauthorized music sound recordings and have implemented audio fingerprinting technology. We will continue working to be the gold standard in protecting creators' rights," MySpace added.

MySpace likes to respond that it builds a presence for bands who'd otherwise have to maintain their own - and did so again in its statement today.

Ironically, MySpace's record label is owned by ... UMG. ®

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