The producer of the movie “The World According to Bush” has sued the search engine giant Google claiming that they made the movie available as a free download from their Google Video France service.

French production house Flach Film said in a statement that they have issued a writ against Google and their French division Google France for copyright infringement.

It added that if such practices continue, the legal internet video market would be harmed in the long run.

The company said: “Flach Film requests the court to sentence Google to provide compensation for the loss resulting from these illegal acts.”

Google France confirmed that they have received the complaint from the company and they have removed the concerned content from their servers. A company representative said: “Our terms and conditions specify that users don’t have permission to use videos which they don’t own the rights to.”

Jean-Francois Lepetit, producer of the film added in his own statement to a media group: “We made estimates of the prejudice, and it goes well beyond 500,000 Euros. The film has been downloaded about 50,000 times, and it has certainly been copied afterwards.”