PORNOTUBE BEING SUED BY VIVID VIDEO

Just as Viacom is battling YouTube over copyright infringement, a major porn purveyor is suing an X-rated YouTube knockoff for ripping off its risqué material.

Vivid Entertainment Group filed the federal lawsuit earlier this week against PornoTube and its parent, Data Conversions Inc., for allegedly letting its users post pirated content, including racy clips from flicks such as “Night Nurses” and “Where the Boys Aren’t 7,” on its Web site.

Similar to YouTube, PornoTube users can upload video clips on the Web site for other users to see for free. Vivid says many of those clips are of copyrighted material, which is undercutting its business.

“We’ve decided to take a stand and say ‘no more,’ ” said Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid. “We will go after all the free sites.”

Vivid is seeking $150,000 in damages for each pirated clip that appears on the site.

The suit, which alleges the site “knowingly built a library of infringing works to draw Internet traffic,” mimics the $1 billion suit filed against wildly popular file-sharing site YouTube by Sumner Redstone’s Viacom.

When it filed its suit, Viacom accused YouTube, which was acquired by Google, of letting 160,000 unauthorized clips from shows such as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” on Comedy Central, be uploaded on to the site.

The Viacom-Google legal spat has yet to be resolved.