Judge orders Google to disclose details of YouTube users viewing habits

Google ordered to hand over details of YouTube Users' Viewing Habits | Business | Sky News

I heard about this on Wednesday but have not had chance to read it fully ...

"It comes in a copyright infringement case brought last year by media giant Viacom which filed a $1bn lawsuit against the Google-owned video-sharing site.

Viacom, which owns MTV, Paramount Pictures and VH1 among others, demanded Google should hand over information about how people use the site.

It argued that the data would show that copyright-protected material was routinely posted and watched.

Viacom claimed that YouTube willfully infringed its copyright by letting users post clips without permission.

It also wants the data to prove that copyrighted "stolen" material is more popular among YouTube visitors than original "user-generated" material.

A federal judge has now ordered Google to divulge details of every video clip uploaded to the site, along with viewers' YouTube usernames and IP addresses.

An IP address identifies individual computers connected to the web but cannot be linked to a name or address without the help of an internet service provider.

YouTube usernames may identify individuals if people have signed up using their own names.

YouTube, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, argued it does not have to take down those clips until Viacom complains about each and every one.

Google had fought the request on privacy grounds and said it could not easily hand over its viewing logs due to the amount of data they contained.

Google must now turn over all its data about YouTube visitors as well as copies of all clips it has ever taken down."

This from InformationWeek.

"Google has to turn over millions of videos it has removed from the video-sharing site, user login IDs, records showing when users watched videos, their IP addresses, and numbers that identify the videos. The order applies not only to videos watched on YouTube but also to videos embedded on third-party Web sites."

I'm unclear as to the international scope of this ruling. I don't know much about IPR and while he may or may not have have ignored the letter of the VPPA (that legislation pre-date the WWW) I can't help but think Justice Stanton has overreached himself.

Google will undoubtably appeal, at least I hope they do, however (though I'm not conviced it fatally weakens their argument) in doing so they are at some risk of being hoist by their own petard:

"We … are strong supporters of the idea that data protection laws should apply to any data that could identify you. The reality is though that in most cases, an IP address without additional information cannot.”

The fact that Viacom demanded this information suggests they intend to seek said 'additional information' for the purposes of identification (of whom is unclear), otherwise what use is it? I'm not overly concerned that Viacaom will come knocking at my door; I'm not a big YouTube user nor do I believe any competent case could be made against individuals, I simply don't like the precedent.

There's an interesting Q&A here:

BBC NEWS | Technology | Q&A: Divulging YouTube log

Stay away from Google. They put a tracking cookie in your computer that wont expire for 30 years. Anyone who has done a google search be aware they no every move you make on the internet.

Yahoo does it too.

I was shocked when i read a article on the bbc about this. Other articles also confirm this. They say a guy from the goverment created it for them.

Wouldn't surprise me. They are trying to gather all your naked photos. They'll arrest the best looking ones of you, and use you for sex slaves.

Bah - it's napster all over again but on a slightly bigger scale. How the fuck are they going to prosecute individuals.

The way shit is copyrighted and the way that is enforced is going to have to change. This is just a big groaning organisation heaving its way around not knowing what the fuck to do about the workings of a 'new' (ha!) medium like the internet.

Maybe they should upload the clips themselves for a small fee - I'm sure youtube could afford viacom a few pennies per clip from the on-site advertising revenue. Nah - that's be too fucking helpful - let's have a big legal flap instead!!

The people they'll get are the ones who have their own links posted with clips under them. Then, if you have joined and are file sharing, they'll get you too.

If you aren't using Firefox, with caching off and a prompt to clear history when you close your browser ... well, idk what to tell you.


/1984

I dont care what you have. You have to run spyware to get rid of it also

I do run spyware every single week.

I'm not worried. It's not like you are stealing and keeping it, you are just watching it. I even have favorites in Youtube and have it set to auto log me in.

Is that process fairly simple for the computerally illiterate??

Also, put on your tinfoil hat.

I am old and ugly. They won't want me. It's you young good looking people they are going to use as slaves.