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).
You are getting it all wrong. The Method for sending this kind of data is to save it as a giant .jpg file, print the binary, and then fax it to Viacom.
This whole situation is such a joke… Every other day it seems like it gets worse and worse.
Schonfield - you muppet, this not an environmentally friendly suggestion now is it? Dipshit.
even better would be semaphore or morse code
Brilliant! Use recycled paper! And offer to recycle the paper when they are done with the data.
Am I missing something here? Isn’t the data on videos posted and logins available *on YouTube*? Just send them the url and let them get it themselves.
What about the videos they’re supposed to turn over? Should they burn each one separately to a LaserDisc and hand them in that way?
No. Instead of thinking about how to deliver the data, they need to focus on whupping Viacom in court on the appeals process.
And because the data contains a lot of third parties data, there is also plenty of opportunities to get third parties to sue to halt the delivery of their data to Failcom.
Print them out, are you nuts. What a waste of paper that will be.
I think the best idea is to send them as an animated GIF with .01 second frames for each character.
And why doesn’t the United States of America just do a class-action law suit against Viacom for use of their private information without their permission?
I think everyone that has ever posted on youtube should request the same access to the files that viacom is receiving- hasn’t viacom now set a precedent?
This is the stupides post i’ve ever read on TechCrunch, or I hope you are joking. And if you are, it’s not funny!!!
How can you encourage such a waste of trees and energy. As a european, I could say that this is typically American: “don’t care about the planet”.
You completely lost my respect by doing this! People trust you when they read you, you have a responsability.
I don’t agree with wasting paper, but forget about that.
I see a big problem here for users who are outside the jurisdiction of the US Court of Law. Im not an expert on that, but hey Mr. Judge and VIACOM, you CAN NOT have our logs just like that. Are you going to start a World War 3?!
No so green!
This entire thing is ridiculous..Viacom is trying to stop a revolution in the way people share media, their attempts will only be a speed bump in the way of this new distribution media. But I blame Google themselves, they should not have any log of what users are watching greater then a few months old at most. If Google would just delete this information after, say, 30 days, they would have much less then 12 TB of info for the goons at Viacom to pilfer.
As others have noted, the paper idea is cute but would be very seriously frowned on by the court. The trick is making the process combersome, but not so overtly that it it can be objected to by Viacom or the court.
if they do this, it should be printed using an 8 point size font.
preferably comic sans.
who needs paper, just send it over a 1200 baud modem.
Better idea: just force them to read TechCrunch posts. They’ll drop the lawsuit.
The earlier poster is correct about the amendments to the Federal Rules of civil procedure. Google will have to produce it manner the parties agree to. Second, google cannot appeal this order because it is an interlocutory order (i.e. One which does not dispose of the case). Third, there is no “right” to privacy that would protect the revealing of the information sought in this case.
So much hate and misguidance.
Let’s face it, we are fucked on this one. No matter how loudly we scream, Viacom will most likely get the data.
What I propose is that we organize a YouTube Blackout Month (boycott) right after the data handover. Personally, I’m already boycotting RIAA/MPAA’s products, although a disciplined RIAA/MPAA boycott would be worth it as well. That should raise a few eyebrows.
But, we will never be able to pull this off. The day that The People can organize into one cohesive mass and start to actually let their voices be heard, is the day shit like this will stop happening. But nobody wants to be inconvenienced. And that’s why we, as consumers, will _NEVER_ win. In fact, we were all raised to buy buy buy, to be good little dumb consumers, to spend money on stupid things, to opportunistically take take take, future of our kids and their kids be damned. The dumber we get, the better consumers we make; but it also makes it harder for us to act against the grain, to pose questions, to resist an oppressive regime or bullying company.
Still, social commentary aside, show of hands — who’s with me? Boycott YouTube for a month?
This decision has seriously dangerous implications to political disidents. See..
http://zennie2005.blogspot.com.....n-rob.html
The top brass at Google must have shit for brains if they didn’t Know that
youtube content was infringing copyright laws but that is why they paid
a hansome price for youtube they thought that they could get away with it
but what doesn’t surprise me is they are not prepared to take the rap
just drop all there users into a meat grinder of course they could of censored youtube content as to not infringe copyright but theres only one
company that i think has that capability and that is a company called Blinkx
as they have the technology that can tag copyrited material as it watches
and listens to the content unlike conventional metadata so the obvious
solution for google to save youtube would be to buy Blinkx.com
Gotta love the law’s - 20 tb of data equates to a hell of a lot of trees!
“intellectual property” = “imaginary property” != property. No property, no theft. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, freedom-hater. Information will be free, and you will be left behind.
PS: @doofus is right: Google is watching.
Perhaps the real question: will Google become Big Brother; or will it become Skynet?
A more viable alternative would be for Google to deliver the data in a digital form which is not searchable. This would most likely mean splitting the data into *many* individual zips delivered on seperate systems (floppies, disks, etc.)
Let’s see how Viacom handles billions of individual, encrypted emails with zips attached….
Poor trees…!
That s a lot of paper!
Name the forest. I ll gas up the chainsaw.
The fact that Google removes other types of content has little to do with the safe harbor protection Google claims. There is no requirement in the DMCA that says if you filter for one type of content you’re obligated to filter for copyright infringement. In fact actively policing for copyrighted material, as Viacom etc would like, may actually remove the safe harbor protection. Assuming Google is correct and they were covered by the safe harbor provision of the DMCA, they were acting against there own interest by acceding to the demands of Viacom and others that they start filtering for copyrighted material.
To all the people complaining about the waste of paper, and trees.
THIS POST IS ABOUT AN ENTIRELY FICTIONAL SITUATION.
Its meant to be some what amusing or tongue in cheek.
I’m sure Google put money away for any lawsuits that came along when they purchased You Tube. Viacom may be shatting its pants, and therefore suing, because of the diminishing viewers to mtv. I meant who watches it?
What music companies don’t understand, or don’t want to acknowledge is that now the use of the internet is prolific. So is the choice. We no longer need there top 40 hits, we can search for things we like. We no longer need to sit and watch Mtv with its endless repeats, or listen to commercial radio repeating the same 10 songs over and over again.
Instead of coming up with a new way of doing business, they sue people.
DO IT that would be great.
I surfed around and found a TOP TEN LIST on the People’s Reaction to Viacom’s Suit Against YouTube Inc. … just like Letterman’s.. but more serious
http://www.techxiety.com/techx.....e-inc.html
I have an idea.
Generate pfd´s and on each page use a different set of distorted fonts, with different non standard codes, so when you print it or when you look at it it´s understandable, but when you try to copy-paste you get pure rubbish.
They will have to find out the codes for each page (and they can generate billions of different fonts with different combinations each so font´s do not repeat), or they will have to use humans to translate the info.
As the fonts are distorted, and multiple fonts are used, any OCR will be useless, or really slow.
C’mon folks. IP protects big companies (including Google’s trademarks, source code, etc). and small folks, too (independent movie makers, songwriters, recording artists). Google is screwing creative people everywhere by pretending not to know what’s on YouTube. Viacom is putting content online — but it has no real choice but to demand that people not use their stuff without paying for it. If YT gets it free, why will people watch it on Hulu or anywhere else? I have a friend who has recorded three CDs - cost his bands a lot of money - only to find his songs all over the internet the next day. Is that fair?
Yeah… I didn’t think they had the guts to go through with it. I’m sure the judge has seen this before, and had something up his sleeve to give a smack down.
how about on the tip of a needle?
To everyone that thinks this hurts trees, your an idiot. Google just needs to learn from Nixon’s mistake and burn the tapes.