Google ordered to disclose viewing habits of Youtube users
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 A US Federal court has ruled that Google must hand over Youtube usage logs to Viacom. Those logs include the following information.- 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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