Google ordered to disclose viewing habits of Youtube users
- Log in ID of users
- IP addresses of users computers
- Details of the video clips uploaded and viewed
Viacom is the parent company of Paramount pictures and MTV. They accuse YouTube of “massive copyright infringement”. A few other international companies are looking to join in on the lawsuit as part of a possible class-action against Google. One such company is The UK’s Premier League association which contends that Youtube has allowed the viewing of football (soccer) match highlights.
Clearly the lawsuit isn’t something new as it has been in litigation for over a year now, but these developments are troubling to say the least. This order opens a wide path not to just go after Google as a company, but also individual users of the YouTube service. I wonder if a person views copyrighted material, knowing it is copyrighted have they violated the law as well as those who supply it?
What are your thoughts on this? Do you feel violated? Does it concern you that by embedding copyrighted material on a website or blog via YouTube that could possibly be considered an issue of copyright infringement?
Additional information:
- EFF thoughts on the matter
- Google has been ordered to turn over all the REMOVED videos as well. Google had argued that Viacom should have to specify the individual videos, but the judge disagreed
- Google responded by saying:
“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.”
Has Viacom gone too far?
- Yes (100%, 2 Votes)
- No (0%, 0 Votes)
- Not Sure (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 2
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What is troubling is the ip address as well as the user id. There is no doubt they are going to go after heavy users, but this scares the Hell out of anyone who has an issue with privacy.
Google has always maintained a level of respect (sort of) when it comes to privacy rights (save China) but this really is scary! Who hasn’t posted a Youtube video on their site? I just did today. Do I know who owns the copyright? No. Am I sure someone does? Yes. Does that make me culpable? Probably!
I know I wouldn’t want to pay to defend it!
Robert – I don’t think we can blame Google for this. Sure we can blame them for even keeping records like that, but on the other hand there are certainly times when we’d wonder why the hell they didn’t have them. Child sex rings, national defense come to mind.
To be honest with you I don’t think Viacom or anyone else has a chance in hell of succeeding. This is so much bigger than Google or Youtube or any one company/site. There will be some rough roads ahead for a lot of people while it gets sorted out, but ultimately this is one beast that isn’t going to be slaughtered.
Brook,
Couple things:
1. I agree that Google isn’t the culprit, but maintaining this info means that you have it. Which means you might have to produce it. Google already complies with local laws (see China)so once ordered, they will provide whatever records they maintain. My problem isn’t even so much that they are giving it as it is to whom they are giving it to.
I could understand if they were providing it to a government entity, but they are giving it to corporation, which is not part of Google’s TOS.
2. I also agree that Viacom has no chance…problem is Google is already trying to work a deal to not provide certain information to Viacom, therefore Viacom doesn’t have to win, Google just has to not want to loose.
3. I am a firm believer in protecting kids and defense obviously, problem is, these things always begin with the best intentions, then who knows! Besides, once you sacrifice personal privacy for security, you no longer have either (Ben Franklin).