RSSIs the latest YouTube court ruling really a 'privacy concern?'
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published July 3, 2008, 2:07 PM
Although privacy advocates are up in arms, a judge's decision in the ongoing court battle between Viacom and YouTube is likely to have little or no real impact on most people who have viewed videos on YouTube.
In the US District Court for Southern New York on Wednesday, Judge Louis Stanton ruled that Google must turn over all of its YouTube viewing logs to Viacom. Specifically, Judge Stanton ordered Google to turn over to Viacom a log containing the login IDs and IP addresses of sources from which videos were downloaded, and details about those videos.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has already slammed the ruling as a "setback to privacy rights," and other advocacy groups are following suit.
But might the EFF's response be interpreted as somewhat of an overreaction? Only those users with registered YouTube accounts have log-in IDs, anyway -- and if you want to download video from YouTube, it isn't even necessary to sign up for an account.
Moreover, for YouTube users who are downloading videos from behind network routers or corporate gateways -- and there are untold numbers of them out there -- the IP address refers to the gateway rather than to a specific PC.
Google itself acknowledged this reality in a document to the court, which is excerpted in the court decision.
"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," according to Google.
As previously reported in BetaNews, the case centers on claims by Viacom -- the parent company of both MTV and Paramount Pictures -- along with a class of co-plaintiffs led by Europe's Premier League Football -- that Google is guilty of massive copyright infringement for allegedly allowing users to view movie clips and soccer highlights.
In initiating the case back in March of 2007, plaintiffs said they had identified about 160,000 unauthorized clips of European football programs -- viewed more than 1.5 billion times -- on YouTube.
Viacom contends that it needs the information in YouTube's database so as to "compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing videos with that of non-infringing videos," according to this week's court ruling.
In reaching this week's ruling, the judge used the term "speculative" to refer to privacy concerns expressed by Google. He also denied an argument by Google that Viacom's demands for information in the logging database are "unduly burdensome" to Google.
"While the logging database is large, all of its contents can be copied onto a few 'over-the-shelf' four-terabyte hard drives," wrote the judge.
In a victory for Google, the court denied a demand from Viacom for Google to turn over YouTube's source code, dubbing it a "trade secret."
But also as part of the ruling, the judge ordered Google to hand over to Viacom detailed information about any videos that have been removed from the site for any reason.
After Viacom launched its part of the case in 2007, YouTube installed filtering tools in attempts to prevent copyrighted materials from showing up on its service.
In a statement this week, Google Senior Litigation Counsel Catherine Lacavera said: "We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for viewing history. We will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymize the logs before producing them under the court's order."
"I dont think I have ever logged in to view a youtube video, but I will now be sure not too... Also I kinda doubt I'll be using it any further at all with these concerns at issue. In short Google should not have been keeping logs of such data to begin with."
The same goes for all of those damned torrent trackers who make you join their little clubs. Their registrants' information also can be provided to the entertainment MAFIA. I don't join those things any more.
Filing lawsuits against somebody who UPLOADS pirated material is one thing; but trying to prosecute millions of people who only watched this garbage is another. How many more prisons will the VIACOM bas+ards build to warehouse thousands of NON-VIOLENT criminals in their capitalist pigs' police state called AMERIKA?
Wake up HOLLYWOOD! Your local California state prisons are already overflowing with true violent criminals. Many are getting out early, so the system can recyle their cells for use by another round of fresh dirtbags. Taxpayers ain't gonna vote for a prisons initiative to warehouse people for your petty BS...
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|Sounds like a lot of people didn't read the YouTube Privacy Notice:
http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy
Even without the policy above, I cannot see how people make this a privacy issue (especially technical people). The Internet is a public network and there are a lot of policies, companies, and countries between you and page you are viewing.
Folks, everything you do on the Internet is logged somewhere and not just one somewhere. When someone wants it, they get it.
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|I still don't understand why they have a problem with people who WATCH illegal videos. They're there aren't they ? If you come across one, what are you supposed to do ? hit the 'back' button ?
And why are they concerned with people watching football highlights ? Theyre HIGHLIGHTS! It happened in the past, its history now. Who cares ?
Nabbing people for seeing illegal videos on a public video website is like jailing someone was seeing a murder in a street.
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|Do you really think this is the first time happening ?
ANY government institution has access to these logs 24/7.
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|Pure invasion of privacy. Through and through. I think that this is the lamest decision made by a judge since Metallica and the RIAA started thier greed campaign many many moons ago. Someone also mentioned DVR...soon you will be paying out just to DVR a show or something of that sort. Never say Never.....Greedy corporate swines.
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|I dont think I have evr logged in to view a youtube video, but I will now be sure not too... Also I kinda doubt I'll be using it any further at all with these concerns at issue. In short Google should not have been keeping logs of such data to begin with. Then there would have never been an issue as to if they should or should not list all the view a particular file...
IMHO this is McCarthyism. Are you now or have you ever watched this file on youtube? If yes your blacklisted as a pirate for viewing material you should not have, if no your lying
cause we have this list of people that say you have. In other words WITCH HUNT.
Look out viacom is after all those that viewed content on youtube, and is ready to prosecute for not only the making available BS, but the seeing it at all scenario as well. So now viacoms content is on the same legal footing of child porn. Not only are you guilty of possession, or distribution, but seeing it as well. Congratulations Viacom, Now every eyeball thats ever seen 1 iota of your content is a criminal in your eyes. Whats next? Suing DVR users that skip commercials on recorded TV shows or time s*** the shows to watch them at a more convenient time then broadcast? Oh yea I forgot you already did that...
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|Viacom probably wants use this information for research into marketing trends, so they produce more garbage. They don't need IP adresses for that. How about everyone boycott everything they produce?
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|Actually, some Youtube accounts can be tied back to Google accounts. It would make sense for Google to downplay the ruling from a PR perspective, since they are going to abide by it instead of settling for a billion dollars.
I fail to see why Google can't provide open code to anonymize the logs to a disinterested third party for this particular application, have said third party run it, and give the anonymized logs to Viacom?
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|This is the single most ridiculous court ruling I've ever heard.
How Viacom and the court can possibly think this isn't an invasion of privacy I shall never know.
They're sharing peoples data even when they more than likely watched a legal video.
It would make sense if they wanted the IPs of people watching illegal videos on YouTube, but not all the videos.
In fact: How the hell can the US court allow other countrys' citizens data be given to a 3rd party? Surely they must only allow US citizens IP addresses to appear un-anonymised.
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|Looks like Google didnt manage to offer the judge as much money as Viacom did.
I dunno if its a case of full privacy or nothing.
I think in extreme cases of say criminal activity (child porn etc), computer data should be handed over to law enforcement. BUT... that should be something you would expect companies to do automatically when asked, and not be coaxed or taken to court in order to do so.
So I believe there are circumstances where it is necessary to breach a persons privacy. This is certainly not one of them.
This is just yet another example to prove that you have no rights at all. To quote the late, great George Carlin "Rights are not rights if someone can take them away just like that. Temporary privileges is all they are folks"
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|Tell them how you feel
Anonymous(ly of course
Judge Louis L Stanton
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse
United States Courthouse
500 Pearl St., Room 2250
New York, NY10007
Phones
(212) 805-0252
Faxes
(212) 805-0389
============================
Also:
Assets
This is a summary of the main Viacom divisions. For detailed assets see List of assets owned by Viacom.
* Film Production and Distribution: Viacom International, Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks, Republic Pictures, MTV Films, Nickelodeon Movies, Go Fish Pictures
* Television Networks: Comedy Central, Logo, BET, Spike, TV Land, Nick at Nite, Nickelodeon, Noggin, The N, Nick Jr., TEENick, MTV, VH1, MTV2, CMT, MHD
* Television Production and Television Distribution: DreamWorks Television
* Video Gaming: Xfire, Harmonix, GameTrailers, Neopets
* Internet Sites: Screwattack
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|Sorry - gotta agree with the EFF and privacy advocates here. Viacom is trying to figure out a ration of user-generated content views to other views. They do not need IP addresses or logins in order to do that. (They especially don't need logins.) In fact, they could do something with just a record for each hit by video and strip everything else. The judge who made this decision really messed up on this one.
Next up - requests from the ISPs for a log of who had (insert IP address here) when video xyz was viewed.
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|Have to say I agree with EFF too. It's a bit like saying the bank should hand over all the details of their customer's transactions to a third party, or a phone company should hand over all the customer records.
Just because it is not directly possible to link every IP address to a person surely means that it will for at least a single person on the list.
One person's privacy invaded is EVERYONE's privacy invaded. Privacy is an absolute, you either have it or not.
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