Google and YouTube have been hit with a proposed class-action lawsuit by England's Football Association Premier League Ltd. and independent music publisher Bourne Co., alleging massive copyright infringement and encouraging other content owners whose videos have appeared on YouTube to join the suit.

"Defendants are pursuing a deliberate strategy of engaging in, permitting, encouraging and facilitating massive copyright infringement on the YouTube Web site," the lawsuit states.

The complaint, filed Friday in New York federal court, alleges that YouTube has purposely refused to remove copyrighted works from its site or employ "readily available technology" to prevent the infringement. Google, which bought the site in November for $1.65 billion, encourages YouTube to continue allowing copyrighted works to be posted by users, the lawsuit claims.

A spokesman for Google could not be immediately reached for comment.