Google 4, Viacom 1, Users' Privacy -100
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Artist:
A blog post on ZDNet.com reports on the judge's ruling in Viacom's suit against Google over copyright infringement on YouTube.
Essentially, Google came out ahead in every aspect of the case - and Viacom came out ahead of YouTube users; essentially, the judge has said that Google has to give Viacom its user records - the records of who posted videos, who watched them and who embedded them, and where:
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Viacom wanted video related data from YouTube's logging database. That's a toned down way to say that Viacom wanted login IDs, the time a user watched it, the IP address and the video identifier. Specifically:
Plaintiffs seek all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website. They need the data to compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing videos with that of non-infringing videos. A markedly higher proportion of infringing-video watching may bear on plaintiffs' vicarious liability claim, and defendants' substantial non-infringing use defense. Defendants argue generally that plaintiffs' request is unduly burdensome because producing the enormous amount of information in the Logging database (about 12 terabytes of data) "would be expensive and time-consuming, particularly in light of the need to examine the contents for privileged and work product material."
And:
Defendants argue that the data should not be disclosed because of the users' privacy concerns, saying that "Plaintiffs would likely be able to determine the viewing and video uploading habits of YouTube's users based on the user's login ID and the user's IP address". But defendants cite no authority barring them from disclosing such information in civil discovery proceedings, and their privacy concerns are speculative.
The judge ruled for Viacom and Google has to produce the user histories.
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Locating MOG account...
Comments (3)
Following up (read the full article):
The ruling is in the discovery phase; actual trial; will not be for some time.
[quote]
Google responded on Thursday in a statement to the court's order.
"We are pleased the court put some limits on discovery," Google said in the statement, "including refusing to allow Viacom to access users' private videos and our search technology. We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for viewing history. We are asking Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymize the logs before producing them under the court's order."
CNET News.com reported that Viacom is under strict instructions from the court not to use the data for anything other than proving the prevalence of infringement on YouTube.
Viacom, therefore, is forbidden from targeting individual users in the manner of the Recording Industry Association of America's lawsuits against individuals found to be downloading illegal music.
[snip
What might prove interesting in the meantime is that among the people Google has asked to depose are Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert of the The Colbert Report.
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This is truly going to be interesting as to how this plays out. Could millions of YouTube uploaders suddenly find themselves in court or getting slapped with fines? Perhaps Viacom would just force YouTube to have those uploading accounts deleted immediatley. Then again, YouTube is supposed to delete those videos anyway but can't seem to keep up with the out of control number of videos from Viacom and other copyright holders.
"Interesting" Yeah. Like the supposed Chinese curse, the best version of which i've heard is:
"May You Live in interesting times.
"May you come to the attention of those in High Places.
"May you get what you say you want."