Court forces Google to hand over ALL YouTube viewers' logs

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

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Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled.
The ruling comes as part of Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.
Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the ruling a "set-back to privacy rights".
The viewing log, which will be handed to Viacom, contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details.
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BBC linky.

Ut ohes :o Does anyone else feel concerned about this? Not that I'm expecting Viacom to pursue foreign nationals for having seen a clip on YouTube, but this is a bit of a large step in a certain direction... :eek:
 
i dont understand why they have given them the right to so much data

surely if anything they should only provide data that is connected to the content?
 
Surely if you're the one that uploaded the content then you should be concerned. I can't see how viewing the video on YouTube is copyright infringement. It's no different to sitting in someone's car while they listen to a copied CD.
 
Surely the IP addresses themselves will be useless? They'd need to speak with everyone's ISPs to get any further information of the users.

Unless your YouTube login is something like:

Myname-myaddress-mypostcode-mycountry
 
I think this is disgusting and proves that we as an internet community need to protect our holy land of semi freedom before the grasp of law, copyright, tax and enforcement takes over.

Enjoy it while it lasts lads.
 
Surely the content should be taking off, rather than it being left there like tasty pie to tempt people to commit the crime.

Much like having speed limits, but fitting all cars with Nitrious Boost buttons...blatantly if it's there, people are going to use it.
 
but apart from music videos what else is copyrighted there ?

am i missing something here ?

*edit* nevermind i read the links...they are just being pricks
 
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Google's senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera said in a statement: "We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's over-reaching demand for viewing history.

"We will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymise the logs before producing them under the court's order."
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It's still possible there will be no information there which will identify anyone, so it will just show how many times videos were watched and by how many unique people if they to anonymise it. If not, it still sounds like it is just to see how many times clips were viewed and not to pursue people who uploaded them.
 
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