<nettime> Judge Orders YouTube to Give All User Histories to Viacom

[Nettime's avid reader <nettime@kein.org>]

oh, the joys of centralization :)


Judge Orders YouTube to Give All User Histories to Viacom
By Ryan Singel EmailJuly 02, 2008 | 7:16:54 PM
Categories: Copyrights and Patents  
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/judge-orders-yo.html


Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by 
YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which 
is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on 
YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular 
than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google's 
liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

Viacom filed suit against Google in March 2007, seeking more than $1 
billion in damages for allowing users to upload clips of Viacom's 
copyright material. Google argues that the law provides a safe harbor for 
online services so long as they comply with copyright takedown requests.

Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users' 
privacy, the judge's ruling [1] described that argument as "speculative" 
and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard 
drives.

The judge also turned Google's own defense of its data retention 
policies -- that IP addresses of computers aren't personally revealing in 
and of themselves, against it to justify the log dump.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has already reacted, calling the order a 
violation of the Video Privacy Protection act that "threatens to expose 
deeply private information."

The order also requires Google to turn over copies of all videos that it 
has taken down for any reason.

Viacom also requested YouTube's source code, the code for identifying 
repeat copyright infringement uploads, copies of all videos marked 
private, and Google's advertising database schema.

Those requests were denied in whole, except that Google will have to turn 
over data about how often each private video has been watched and by how 
many persons.


[1] http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/viacom_youtube.PDF




#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org