Two YouTube producers claim in federal court that a service promising "free" music for videos is instead engaged in a "bait and switch followed by extortion."

Those are among the claims against Freeplay alleged in Los Angeles federal court lawsuits by Machinima and Collective Digital Studio.

According to one (PDF) of the nearly two identical lawsuits (PDF) from the two companies:

After luring in unsuspecting consumers with the promise of "free" music, Freeplay then encourages these consumers to use the music, including in their own YouTube videos. After the consumer follows Freeplay’s advice, Freeplay then traps the consumer by demanding that he or she pay outrageous "license fees" for the use of music that was supposedly "free." Unlike most content owners, once a consumer uses Freeplay’s music in a fashion Freeplay deems to be “illegal,” Freeplay does not simply issue a takedown notice and request that the consumer remove the content. Instead, Freeplay sends the individual consumer a shakedown demand, threatening litigation if the consumer does not pay Freeplay an outrageous "license fee." Furthermore, in making these outrageous demands, Freeplay refuses to identify to the target of the shakedown all of the allegedly infringing content. This is NOT how a business that wishes to legitimately license and protect its content would behave. But Freeplay is not really in the content license business. Freeplay conducts its business in a very different manner—a bait and switch followed by extortion.

Freeplay"s website boasts "15,000 songs, free music for YouTube and more." In a statement, its attorney, Oren Warshavsky, said the allegations were "baseless."

"Freeplay has received the complaints and we are preparing a response that will clearly demonstrate that the allegations and characterizations in the complaints are baseless," Warshavsky said in an e-mail. "Freeplay intends to zealously protect its rights and reputation and is committed to doing the same for the artists it represents."

It wouldn't be the first time we've seen allegations akin to this. Consider the firm Prenda Law, which sued thousands of people for illegally downloading porn files over BitTorrent. However, documents suggest that the firm itself had actually seeded the files.

Machinima, of West Hollywood, says it works with some 30,000 programmers. Collective Digital Studio, of Beverly Hills, boasts more than 6,000 channels.

What's more, the suits claim that in October, "Freeplay unilaterally altered its confusing and contradictory 'terms and conditions' of use—prohibiting the free use of its music on YouTube multi-channel networks (MCNs)." After the changeover, the suits allege, "Freeplay began issuing monetary demands to numerous consumers who had uploaded media on YouTube through an MCN—media that allegedly contained music subject to Freeplay's copyright."

The lawsuits allege that Freeplay's monetary demands are "typically" made by "a third party 'monitoring' the web for supposed infringement on behalf of Freeplay." The suits claim that the Web-monitoring company, TuneSat, and Freeplay were founded and are being run by the same person.

TuneSat did not immediately respond for comment.

The suits demand that a federal court stop the allegedly illegal practice, and they seek a declaration of non-infringement.