The recent court order directing Google to hand over data to Viacom about every YouTube video ever watched strikes many people as an absurd overreach of the law into the privacy of anyone who has ever used YouTube (i.e., almost everyone on the Internet). Google should definitely keep fighting the ruling if it can.
But if it can’t, perhaps it should comply with it in a creative way. The data in question are data logs containing the records of every video watched on YouTube, by whom, and at what times. The court is also ordering that Google hand over all videos that have ever been taken down for any reason. The logs alone take up 12 terabytes. Google should print them out and deliver them on paper.
It would literally fill up the Library of Congress. That is roughly the equivalent of all the printed books in the Library of Congress (by one estimate, others put it at 20 terabytes—either way, it’s a lot of paper). The court order never states what form, the data must be delivered in.
(Photo via, appropriately enough, the Library of Congress And hat tip to reader Paul Christiansen for the original suggestion).
>> The court order never states what form, the data must be delivered in.
Except on page 13 where it states:
“While the Logging database is large, all of its contents can be copied onto a few “over-the-shelf” four-terabyte hard drives (Davis Decl. ¶ 22).”
Google tried to argue “…that plaintiffs’ request is unduly burdensome because producing the enormous amount of information in the Logging database (about 12 terabytes of data) “would be expensive and time-consuming…” So, they’d look like idiots if they delivered it in the most expensive and time-consuming format.
They could also deliver the data like all 0 bits on one HD and all 1 bits on another. Nobody ever said the data had to be in the right order, did they?
Viacom and the judge should be sued for attempting privacy invasion.
All this order does is give Viacom full access to data for market research purposes. Look at the other requests they made that the judge denied - such as the algorithm uses to return search results!
Attempted legally-supported open corporate espionage. That’s all this was *ever* about, methinks - getting a peak under the hood.
@51
“While the Logging database is large, all of its contents can be copied onto a few “over-the-shelf” four-terabyte hard drives (Davis Decl. ¶ 22).”
The operative word here is the descriptive “can” - meaning physically possible. If this were the prescriptive method, the word used would very likely be “shall” or “must” which have specific meanings in law (or so I understand, not being an attorney myself)
The order at the end of the document states
“The motion to compel production of all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website is granted;”
That seems pretty open ended to me. Paper would be the best, floppies would be fantastic, FAX is innovative, and the rest of the ideas speak to the absurdity of the situation, and the stupidity of the judge…. ok, maybe just senile and stuck in the paper age
Continuing my post… why in the world does Viacom even need data about who has viewed videos? I thought there was no legal issue about viewing copyright-infringing material, only distributing it.
I could understand YouTube having to hand over logs of anyone who has ever uploaded a video, but getting free privacy-invading data on everyone who has ever viewed something is preposterous!
Google didn’t steal. They’re providing a service. There’s still many viral videos that are published legally by users. Certainly, users are using this service to spread so-called copyrighted videos (and I call it so-called because I don’t believe in copyrights in the first place). As far as YouTube/Google making money, I doubt it. Eric Schmidt had said that they still are investigating ways of monetizing YouTube. Heck, they even bribed a few of the major recording industries to allow users to post/host music videos legally (or at least get the studios to use their service as a CDN to host the studios’ music videos).
I’m certain Google buying YouTube was a twofold political deal to prevent another Napster disaster from initially happening (as well as using it as a potential advertising platform for their AdWords). Naturally, the very nature of YouTube was a ticking time bomb. However, I argue that YouTube has done more good for the world than hurting the few companies, lawyers, executives and shareholders who typically are overcompensated in the first place. I mean, take a look at how Japanese game shows are now coming to America because Americans (and others) have become fascinated. Without YouTube and similar viral mechanisms on the net, these shows would remain local only to Japan. Also, providing unlimited access to videos, legal or not, allows cross culturalism where people from other countries have the capability of people’s content. For instance, Fernando Miyata is slowly being discovered as one of the best guitarist in the world. Lastly, (and here’s important point) is that YouTube has globally allowed people easy access to as much content as its available. Distributors have always been stingy about the way they market their stuff. Worse yet, they stop supporting their own artists after their artists fade (or rather when these corporations decide they no longer want to market them). Instead, we’re treated to nostalgia by allowing us to view things locked away in dusty vaults. We have history and can educate people on our past culture through the use of viral videos. However, because corporations, lawyers, executives and shareholders are all stingy bastards, everyone except them loses in this.
It’s not intellectual property anymore. It’s not about individuals. It’s just corporate assets. That’s what they should call this from now on. Give it a cold, hard name so that people will stop sympathizing with these artists puppets and call it what it is.
@52 Typical freetard
For all of those people so concerned about the trees …
There are more pulp-growing forests in the US now than in 1920.
Fewer trees than ever are being cut down for paper because of recycling, and the declining newspaper business.
It would actually offer a minor bump to the pulp industry that could relieve the price pressure newspapers are dealing with right now.
That said, I still like the microfilm and floppy disk ideas.
I think they should make a giant video and roll the information as credits.
for what reason has Google collected and stored that data in the first place? If Google would not be such a data maniac the court order would not even exist.
How about printed on toilet paper in Aramaic hieroglyphs?
Or they can say they sent it to Karl Rove first and he lost it.
What really annoys me is that we are getting face-to-face with Google’s idiotic, dogmatic data retention policies, that of never destroying anything; why did they keep such logs in the first place ?
What will happen when they subpoena all of the search logs next ?
Why did we ever trusted them with such data in the first place ?
I guess that’s why they posted their privacy policy today. Because there’s none.
Google should send the data encoded in UTF-16, as pure binary. and then use some DRM technique to stop viacom from translating the data electronically.
So it will all have to be done by hand. Mwhahahahaaaa, this solves the whole tree cutting problem. However i do like the idea, of faxing the data to viacom, so they foot the bill.
They also should print the data in a whitespace encoding.
I wonder what would happen if Google refused to produce the data or simply destroyed the data. Would the brand boost be worth it?
And waste so much of paper. Good for the ecology I say…
@ Unbelievable re:
“What really annoys me is that we are getting face-to-face with Google’s idiotic, dogmatic data retention policies, that of never destroying anything; why did they keep such logs in the first place ?”
Google knows the value of any and all info. They are a gigantic vacuum cleaner sucking up and organizing all info and reaping the Metcalfe’s Law benefits. Unfortunately the world is not “all good” and as they accumulate power/value (believe me, the retroactive quant and behavioral data they’re amassing is invaluable) they must play games with other power players. How they choose to play those games ultimately determines their value, how the other actors react and our relationship to our behavioral data.
In Dune-ian terms: He who controls the data controls the universe - and everyone wants to. But he who destroys data also exerts control and R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I smell a big ass showdown, if Google is serious about doing no evil, a statement which they have been carefully backing away from for very real and serious reasons.
Your move Googlio.
Nice (-: YouTube stole the content from Viacom so let them bleed!
how do you actually get 12-20TB of data to them anyway? DVD’s? Email? a whole server rack full of jbods?
Perhaps Google could encrypt all that data (you know, for security reasons… because this process could take a long time) and then send it to Viacom via morse code using 1’s and 0’s?
OR
Following on from their Google IO shirts, perhaps provide the information on a series of limited edition tshirts?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....too-fancy/
?
Send them via Morse code
or with smoke signals
or with 1 inch punch cards that only a PDP-1 can read
or in color-coded peanuts
or via an 8-baud modem from the 70’s
Viacom is stupid. they get free advertising through YouTube,
and they should negotiate with Google just for that alone.
in our time, its easier for people to stop watching any Viacom content,
than YouTbue. And they know that, but try to suck some quick cash from big G by using that as an excuse.
What a waste of resources that would be - on paper. are there that many trees?
instead !! and a better idea maybe a massive jpeg image with a really random background so that the text can not be read by machines
Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio would be proud.
To the commenters above that said google/youtube are clearly in the wrong - Viacom is attempting to prove not that youtube clearly benefitted from copyrighted material, but that they skewed search results in favour of them, and that they used them to spur their core business.
There was certainly copyrighted material all over the shop, but that this was the point of youtube? :p
Sir Roland Wilson was a Australian Commonwealth Statistician (Head of the Bureau of Statistics) in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
During a tax evasion case, he was asked to supply some private data from one his data providers. He incinerated all such data rather than supply any, at considerable professional risk.
I wonder if Google exec.’s are similarly protective of their users?
@Alvin
It would be interesting to see what happened if there were to be an ‘accident’ with the data. A fire, perhaps., and a coincidental lack of backups.
why stop at only 20 TB? Google can do better than that.
Why not rolling all of the videos in a single uncompressed high-definition video file, starting with all the two girls one cup submissions, with credits to the uploaders, and flashing the names of users in different fonts and styles and colors and sizes?
Of course, there is no need to use these fancy codecs to compress anything; just send the uncompressed raw video by email to Viacom, copying the judges and a special server in Google set up to receive such a monster.
Neither viacom or the judge would be able to handle the little monster, and google would have fully complied.
Everyone should follow the law. We need it for a better society.
Failing that, burn it to cds. It will only take about 30,000.
Oh, fuck the LAW. The law is a whore like everyone else. Do you really think anyone with money and power gives a fiddler’s fart about the law? I’m getting so sick of this business of tracking everything anyone’s ever done, analyzing it, selling it, data-mining & going back to charge people with “crimes”. This is some sick, OCD, anorexic-weighing-their-own-feces kind of stuff. It’s the kind of control freak shit that will leave us all sitting alone in apartments tearing up while we reminisce about when people actually had lives, to say nothing about the ridiculous legal possibilities it raises. Fuck the law, fuck Google, Viacom & the courts. I just want to go outside forever and never look at another computer.
Yes, there is something really OCD about all the legal crap these huge companies do to enforce copyright. It fucks them all in the ass.
Case in point: You can’t even buy Ally McBeal or the Wonder Years on DVD in the US, so all you people that loved those shows have NO way of watching that show legally unless some poor network has nothing else to show and puts those on for reruns. Or until they buy the Region 2 version and wonder why it don’t play on their DVD player. And why? Because paying for rights to all the music used in the show for the DVD sets is too expensive, so Fox (and what network was Wonder Years?) just canned the show instead for US viewers. There goes all the LEGAL purchasers for those shows. Worse, the networks aren’t even terribly open with people about this, so there are tons of unenlightened fans out there who in their frustration end up turning to… YouTube, torrenting, pirated copies, etc. (And just so I’m totally open here, those shows may still go out on DVD… but the music licensing is holding them up indefinitely with NO definite release dates and has been for years now.) There goes a few angry would-be customers that won’t trust the network to give them what they want.
So in the end, what is YouTube? A way to get media that you wouldn’t get because a) it’s not available legally in your jurisdiction, b) it’s way too expensive (have you seen how much imports cost at Virgin and even the international Amazon’s?) or c) you see no reason to upgrade to cable to see one show which you might buy on DVD later but will watch clips of on YouTube until then - or until Viacom ends up suing your ass right after they burn Google for your name and location and $1B and you can no longer afford any media whatsoever.
Keep making us hate you, big companies. We may be chained to your shows and your rappers and your movie stars, but when you’re burning, they can always sign on with another company and the show will go on.
In paper form, in a gothic font, 5 points, single-spaced, on both sides of the page. Should reduce the number of pages required by a good deal and OCR software can handle that for Viacom. Might take a while though…
@Shams
The law is a gallows to hang the poor and unprivileged. Nobody in power gives a crap about the law, they will do anything within their power to subvert the law or interpret it to their own best interest. -If- everybody indeed followed the law, that would work to build a harmonious and stable society [provided the laws themselves were any good]. As it is now, the law works against the people, not for them.
The law says, among other things, what the minimum wage is. Have you ever heard of someone who decided what the minimum wage is who had to actually live off of it?
Screw the law.
Ok they have my IP address, time of connection and user, and then what? You are going to come to spain for ask my isp my data? You need a spanish judge to do that. Even having my real name (easy if you are a bit smart) the worst they can do is to forbid me to enter in USA. But is imposible to do that with all the people in all the world.
Fight for your rights USA citizens, don’t allow this mafia to do whatever they want to do.
Good luck.
It would be completely ridiculous if Google had to get that. If they obtain this information, then they are really infringing upon a lot more privacy than anyone could have ever expected. I don’t know what the judges are thinking but they are extra stupid!
However Google decides to hand the data over should be cheap and easy to them - I suggest they tell Viacom that if they want the data they can copy it out (preferably by hand) themselves.
Why not send it as a series of images instead. You could even distort them in ways the impede optical character recognition without making problems for humans. That would be just as effective and more environmentally friendly.
Amazing all the concern for trees - which, by the way is a renewable resource.
The point of the post, which is obviously lost on the tree huggers who really do take life MUCH TOO SERIOUSLY, is that Viacom wants data that it really has no right to have. Thus, to make a point to Viacom, Google - should it really be required to provide the data after exhausting all available appeals - should deliver the data in the least convenient form possible.
At some point I hope people stop patronizing companies like Viacom who are contented to conduct business ‘Via” 20th century methods. The music industry is suffering greatly because of its idiotic approach to digital data. Now the same should happen to the movie/TV industry. As a website owner/content producer, I’m all for protecting rights to one’s creative content, but the onerousness of this ruling shows that the media companies have not a clue as to how to move forward in a digital age.
Yawn, Is anyone else waiting for Google to Take over the WOrld? Its gonna happen sooner or later you know.
JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
Hahaha! That floppy disc idea is fantastic. Finally a good use for the millions of 1.4mb floppies that are laying around all over the place. Put the records on them and send them to Viacom with a bill.
This is madness on the part of the US government.
They want to see who, when, what and from the IP? If that isn’t big brother - invasion of privacy, then I don’t know what is.
They can use that for other purposes, like who is watching anti-gov vids, anti-bush vids, religious vids and so on!
If they need to now how many times their material is viewed, its already available.
But to get what someone is watching personally and when and from the IP, that is totally against all privacy!!!
This is not only a fight for Google/youtube, its a fight for every individual!!!
Stand up and shout!
@92 It’s not the government, it’s a corporation. Keeping the logs of who is watching and from what IP in the first place is against all privacy. Google is just as fucked as Viacom. They are not the good guys.
Don’t forget, google’s business is not running a search engine, it’s selling advertising. And it does that by collecting information about you. And keeping it forever.
Google is not your friend.
Just this once, it’s worth the freaking trees. It’s a small one-time fee for a phenominal service, and one we can’t afford not to buy.
Excellent suggestion. Do it.
> They can use that for other purposes, like who is watching anti-gov vids, anti-bush vids, religious vids and so on!
Well put. I say we EMP google. Wipe the slate clean!
That’s a lot of trees to kill, and overall impractical. If we are going to suggest a realistic way for Google to limit what Viacom can do with the data perhaps Google should generate an electronic log of the information and then convert it to image format with a bunch of those nifty watermarks and distortions to prevent image parsers from automatically extracting the contents.
It would take Viacom employees hundreds of years to make any sense of the data!
They should just deliver the files via bittorrent.
In jpg format ! Not parsable and you save the trees….
Sorry to rain on the parade, but the recently revised Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will require the parties to agree on the format of the documents and data to be discovered. If they cannot, the judge will decide what is most reasonable and expedient. You are not the first person to think of this. Dumping HUGE volumes of paper on the opposing party in response to discovery was a tactic used by litigators for decades in large-scale, corporate cases. Clearly, no court is going to allow that volume of information to be delivered in printed format - not just because of the wasted paper, expense and inconvenience, but because it would deprive the party requesting the information of all of the valuable metadata that comes along with the records when they are delivered in native format. THAT is where the real treasure trove can be in some of these cases. THAT’s what the parties are often fighting about in these cases - the exact specifications for the electronic format and who will pay for the cost of resurrecting old systems so that they can be restored from ancient backup tapes in the hope that there MIGHT be some relevant information contained in an old email or database. Sorry to burst your bubble - Good sentiment but the legal system is a few steps ahead on this one.
Why are they keeping my data? Of course they will give them up.