The ongoing Google/YouTube-Viacom litigation has now officially spilled over to users with a court order requiring Google to turn over massive amounts of user data to Viacom. If the data is actually released, the consequences could be far more serious than the 2006 AOL Search debacle.
Louis L. Stanton, the senior judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, issued the opinion and order, which is here (PDF).
That data includes every YouTube username, the associated IP address and the videos that user has watched on YouTube. Google will also be required to hand over copies of every video removed from Youtube for any reason (DMCA notices or user-initiated deletions). Stanton dismissed Google’s argument that the order will violate user privacy, saying such privacy concerns are merely “speculative.”
Meanwhile, the judge denied Viacom’s request that Google turn over YouTube’s source code as it could “cause catastrophic competitive harm to Google by sharing them with others who might create their own programs without making the same investment.”
I can understand why Judge Stanton, who graduated from law school in 1955, may be completely and utterly clueless when it comes to online video services. But perhaps one of his bright young clerks or interns could have told him that (1) handing over user names and a list of videos they’ve watched to a highly litigious copyright holder is extremely likely to result in lawsuits against those users that have watched copyrighted content on YouTube, and (2) YouTube’s source code is about as valuable as the hard drive it would be delivered on, since the core Flash technology is owned by Adobe and there are countless YouTube clones out there, most of which offer higher quality video.
YouTube’s core value is in it’s network effect – the library of content along with its massive user base.
The privacy fallout of this ruling is spectacular. The EFF has already chimed in, noting that the order is highly likely to be in violation of federal law.
Judge Stanton doesn’t seem to care much about that law, for now. And he clearly doesn’t understand that far more data is being transferred than is necessary to comply with Viacom’s core stated concern, which is to understand the popularity of copyright infringing v. non-infringing material. Viacom has asked for far more data than that, and there’s only one use for that data: to sue individual users (or shake them down via the threat of lawsuit, which has been perfected by the RIAA) who have watched a few music videos or television shows on YouTube.
I say this with the utmost respect, but Judge Stanton is a moron. And Google simply cannot hand this data over without facing a class action lawsuit of staggering proportions.
Let’s sue the judge!
Lets!
Submit this story to daily WTF !!!
(1) handing over user names and a list of videos they’ve watched to a highly litigious copyright holder is exactly 100% likely to result in lawsuits against those users that have watched copyrighted content on YouTube
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YouTube should be partly responsible for having a platform that directly/indirectly promotes the content and having people to watch them.
It’s time to hire CSI / online forensic experts to reveal the dirt.
Users should not be blamed! Say NO to handing over of user names.
Best regards,
Darren Lee
http://www.adexcel.com
If push came to shove, they should simply encrypt the user data. I think the judge would be hard pressed handing down a ruling forcing them to un-encrypt the data, which would further violate user privacy.
Google needs to implement analog and digital fingerprint technology to firstly. have a database with all possible copyrighted content, seoncldy, to automatically block the publishing of that copyrighted content and notify the copyright holder automatically of every attempt at uploading any specific copyrighted material.
Digital and analog fingerprinting technology will not only recognize any 1 second of someone trying to upload a copyrighted video, and any 1 second of someone using copyrighted music in their video.
Google could then provide all copyright holders revenue sharing incentives to have them authorize the use of their copyrighted material. The point is, copyright holders should not only get indirect promotion for their content by it being watched and shared on Youtube, copyright holders should be able to earn an automatic revenue share of the very high monetization value of overlayed advertising (estimated at 15 dollars per 1000 views). Let’s estimate that Viacom content has been viewed 10 billion times before Google tried harder to start blocking the upload of such content, that would have amounted to 150 million dollars of lost revenue for Viacom if such overlay advertising monetization system would have been implemented.
All Viacom wants is more money, of course they want more money. Google should settle out of court by activating that monetization system, analog and fingerprinting technology and an upfront advance of 150 million dollars on future overlay advertising revenue if Viacom accepts to try to monetize their videos on Youtube. This would lead to full length episodes of Colbert Report and The Daily Show being put on Youtube and all clip uploads being authorized.
Ross – Google should just delete the data and let things play out from there. Worst case is they lose a $1 billion lawsuit, but are the heroes of user privacy advocates forever. It would add dramatic flair if a few execs went to jail for violating the court order, too.
You know, there’s countless times I click on a feature on YouTube and get asked to login. I don’t have a YoutTube account. I have never logged into YouTube. I just watch stuff on there and leave. Boy, this news makes me think how glad I am I never did that.
This, my dear friends and fellow internet passers-by, is why you pick who you register your details with VERY, VERY carefully. It’s not that you could directly expose yourself most of the time, although this is definitely an issue, it’s what the bastards will do with your name when the crap hits the fan, and how likely it is that will happen given the nature of the content on the site. YouTube always struck me as way to risky, so does anywhere else that allows posting of copyright material with seemingly very little control.
i’m a member of youtube, i dont want my videos to be handle by viacom, i will sue youtube if they do that
Crunchbase says
Youtube Acquired: June 29, 2008 by Google
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@Mark – but did you ever browse youtube when you were logged into Google?
hope viacom wins this.
stupid lawsuit + clueless judge = the beginning of the death of web2.0
Sure The Colbert Report and The Daily Show have enjoyed a larger success thanks to their clips being shared on Youtube. But for sure I also think Viacom has merit in asking that the 10s of billions of views of their copyrighted material be monetized directly.
Youtube is like having an on-demand TV channel that shows your copyrighted material without showing any ads. Or at least without giving you a fair opportunity to profit from those few non-overlay thus non-efficient ads that are displayed on Youtube.
If in fact the activation of overlay advertising will generate 15 dollars per 1000 views in revenue for the copyright holder, then why doesn’t Google just get on with it and activate that option?
Google has a responsibility to monetize online video since a large majority, something like 70% of worldwide non-Bittorrent/Emule Internet video traffic is Youtube. They should monetize the thing now!
Digital and analog fingerprinting technology will not only benefit large “evil” coorporations like Viacom and other music and movie majors, this will also open up a fantastic opportunity for independent artists and video makers to submit all of their content on Youtube’s global copyright database and thus allow any Youtube user to remix, use, edit or simply publish, share and spread all of their content. The more any content is used and appreciated, the more the creator of that content should be directly compensated.
@Ian
Aahhhhh crap. You know that never occurred to me, that’s a damn good point. Well I guess we’re all (well any Google users at the least) screwed then.
Then again YouTube acts all dumb like it doesn’t know I have an account when I got to youtube.com and I’m logged into Google on this computer. I refuse to believe they don’t know though, I just never realised.
That said, have I ever watched any Viacom content? I doubt it. I’m also outside the USA, not that that’s likely to stop them.
This is getting ridiculous…
Yes, let all the social sites hand over all their user data to anyone who sues them!
Let’s sue Facebook and get an old “experienced” judge to handle the case and give me their 40+ million user info, because some of them might have done something against someone…
I’m trusting Google won’t give anything out.
- Michael
Nozbe – Simply Get Things Done!
Watching copyrighted material isn’t the same as downloading it. Many networks have free content for viewing on their own websites, and it’d be very hard to argue intent in this case… that the majority of these YouTube users knew this was illegal use of copyrighted material.
It could easily be argued that, being owned by Google and as large as they are, simply by allowing the videos to be posted to the public YouTube site, YouTube was acknowledging some sort of licensing agreement.
I can tell you I don’t know if I’ve ever watched copyrighted content on YouTube, but I’m almost certain I have. I click links in emails that take me to YouTube. How am I to know it’s copyrighted? It’s not our job to ensure the material on their website is legitimate.
I can actually understand Viacom wanting to obtain user information for those who uploaded the copyrighted material but for them to try to sue those of us who viewed the videos would be suicide. They’d have so many counter suits by the EFF and other rights groups. They have deep pockets, but even that amount of bad publicity would hurt.
This is no longer about youtube or google. This is about privacy in general and the expectation of privacy, whether watching videos from youtube, pornotube, or communistpoliticstube (I made that last one one up).
This simply cannot be allowed and google should take this to the supreme court and defy the order. The execs who defy the order and go to jail for a few days will be in the history books and google will smell like roses for a few days again.
“…likely to result in lawsuits against those users that have watched copyrighted…”
Since when did *watching* copyrighted material become illegal? Isn’t it the user that posted the material that’s in trouble, not the users that watched that material?
It’s those users that should be concerned. Viacom will have concrete data about how often a copyrighted work was viewed, which will make pretty good grounds for damage claims. “Such-and-such episode of The Daily Show was watched by X number of users, resulting in a loss of Y”, etc.
@Charbox, do you really think that a global conglomerate like Google wouldn’t pass the impact of monetization onto the user community? That would be a huge step in the wrong direction for the future of the internet! I agree with an earlier post that Google should “accidentally” ditch the records and face the judge with the same deer in the headlights look that the judge has on his face when you are trying to explain a used submitted video site and source coding to him. It is reasons like this why they take senior citizens driver’s licenses away, their decision making ability is shot, but Hey! let them run our courts.
This is going to be really interesting !
At one side,there is an image crashing moment for Google for slipping out user’s data to a third party and at other side,a heavy penalty is heading towards them…
Seriously waiting for the next update on this issue….!!!
Be realistic- if the Telecoms are now immune from suits for releasing private information then surely some judge can command youtube to deliver user information.
You people think there’s any privacy on the internet or anywhere else? Hell, google delivered information to the chinese so that china could persecute pro-freedom citizens.
Remember that nonsense philosophy of Google- “do no harm”. What a farce.
google should email the judge a link to some Viacom YouTube video…
Michael, You’re completely wrong. The data Viacom requests IS the whole point of their case. Their copyrights were infringed. They need to find out how much and by whom. They need to sue whomever they can to make it right. For you to say they should not, you are throwing the entire copyright law. Under your way of thinking, it would be impossible for any artist to make money for their art. Then you say the the source code is not important, this is also totally off base. The biggest part of law is precedent. This judge gives away source that is not entirely original (as you correctly point out) then the lawyers in the next case that comes along argues this precedent, and then a judge will feel compelled to give away source code that IS unique. The judge in this case rightly refused the source code request NOT because it’s valuable (as you guessed), but because it’s perfectly unneeded for Viacom to prove it’s case. They requested it, knowing that it would be refused, only so they can say they “compromised” on the issue. It’s a common game.
No offense, but your article was not thought out very well and it’s irresponsible to sow discord this way.
RIAA can french kiss my ass.
It would be great if an accidental fire burned down the data center hosting these logs. That could happen, really.
Sergey, give me a call.
Mike,
Your suggestion about google simply deleting the data is simply brilliant. Impressed as always
Sorry guys but whilst it was a bad decision for the internet as a whole I can not feel sorry for YouTube / Google. They are arrogant enough to hide behind the outdated DMCA and refuse to take any positive action to limit their copyright exposure. Numerous other sites such as break.com, kontraband.com etc pu their editorial team in front of content and make every effort to remove all copyright exposure. It is time for both legislation and YouTube to rework the model.
I think the bigger story is that Viacom tried to get the search algorithm for google.com. I like their audacity.
I feel violated. I have enjoyed You Tube. I have infringed, yet those infringed upon get’s one of the world’s great value propositions, which is, acknowledgement and attention, and that ‘word of’ spreads rapidly. It is shameful that peoples of a people would violate those peoples basic live’s and rights to protect their rights of paper origen. OMG! I meant no harm, I did no harm, yet my enjoyment of the web and it’s ‘very good’ information and collaboration is being detroyed by ‘privacy’ pirates. Evil will forsake a lake of truth for a pint of poison. YouTube is not as much fun as it used to be, but, it is and has always been that the spontaneous content is by far the best on the channel, and what I watch for to view, not the pre-packaged crap that is lucky enough to get am attention and my recommendation. Cutting off your nose to spite your face. I, Promise, I WILL NOT WATCH ANOTHER VIACOM PROGRAM. I PROMISE I WILL ENCOURAGE EVERYONE THAT I KNOW, to do the same. I will spread the word of the evils of Viacom. Tread on ME, I AM NOT ALONE, VIACOM. VIACOM has become anathema for me.
For those who want a bit of background on this subject here’s a short track:
http://www.jogt...php?trackId=162
(Just jog on after the last step to land back automatically on this post)
It’s on a day like today that I am glad you’re a lawyer Michael..
Keep us posted…
To say that Youtube’s technology has no value is complete crap.
Turning over source code can prompt a competitor to glean solutions to problems they were not even aware of nor would be able to fix without significant investment. I don’t know much about Youtube, but one thing is for certain of companies of this scale – they have made significant investments. The video player is the tiniest part. The real heavy lifting is done by backend machines, streaming machies, relevancy algorithms, applications of scalability strategies and so forth.
Breath-taking. Didn’t the users have a right to be representation? Can Google appeal this before complying?
this is authoritarian government practice shining at its darkest ugly…videos were pirated for years, then dvd’s, youtube is no different but the entermainment industries make enough anyway
I hope Google fights this hard. And follows Mike Arrington’s advice too.
Can I sue the judge and Viacom for $1bn? they have clearly infringed on my right to privacy, and forced Google to break their own terms and conditions.
Hmmm… Web 2.0 is becoming scary day by day, there more you are online the more you are in trouble. Has its own advantages too…
Youtube is complicit in these larceny cases.
They control what goes up
and what goes down.
And they owe the writers, the actors, and the major studios
lots and lots of money for allowing
wholesale copyright infringement to increase Youtube’s bottom line
on the backs ABC, NBC, CBS, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, etc…
You don’t have believe me.
You can go right now to Youtube
and believe your own lying eyes.
When after a long series of events police had reasonable suspicion that i had the private data of my entire school system in my email (another story entirely) , The police asked google for access to my account. Google told them (in as many words) to go fuck themselves and they had to ask me for my info.
I trust that google with my data more than anyone else i know.
Don’t be EVIL!
A horrible precedent being set here. Since anyone can sue for pretty much anything, does this ruling imply that anyone (with deep pockets) can gain access to usage data by simply claiming infringement?
Although I infrequently visit YouTube, I still feel violated.
That’s their argument. Nothing bad has happened yet so we ought to let something bad happen and set a precedent so that millions of bad things can happen.
Same thing they used to say we shouldn’t have Net Neutrality. Wait until it’s an actual problem, then change your position and make sure that by the time the right people get in office it’ll be far too late.
Something is going to BREAK very soon
old world values no longer apply to new world realities
I’d simply urge anyone else to join me in contacting Viacom and informing them I will no longer watch or purchase any of their products from this day onwards.
So is anything going to happen to us users who watch copyrighted videos? Are we going to get sued like music downloaders have?
With a piece of paper and a pen I can go to a library and make copies of anything I want. Does that make the paper and pen manufacturers responsible for copyright infringement? Or maybe paper and pen manufacturers should turn over the names of everyone who bought a pen and paper “in case” they might have written down copyrighted material.
ad nauseam
youtube has consistently complied with its legal obligations under the DMCA and every other relevant law of the land; it has, in many cases, even gone above-and-beyond de minimis compliance and instituted regimes (like filtering technologies) it has no legal obligation to implement under the dmca.
The request by viacom is clearly unlawful under 2170: it may take a court case to establish that a website allowing members to view videos on demand has the same legal status per 2170 as a video store allowing users to rent videos on demand, but the language and intent of the law are both in favor of the users’ records not being legally obtainable.
For all you “wah wah people are infringing viacom’s copyrights” people, just a word of warning: your copyrights are legal constructs; if you want to start playing fast and loose with some laws (2170 video rental privacy, to-the-letter dmca compliance) when their contents are inconvenient to your interests, well, you will have little sympathy when others play fast and loose with other laws in ways detrimental to your interests.
While I find most of what Arrington writes to be insightful and sensible, this was not…
“Google should just delete the data and let things play out from there.”
This could be considered by some a heroic act. But really, it’s advocating what is mostly outright criminal behavior; going far beyond any civil litigation type matters at hand here. I’d assume this was just an attempt to strongly make a point, but the use of such civil disobedience here – were it to actually be done – would cause a lot more harm than good. (IMO)
As far as the ruling goes, I do agree it’s ridiculous from a privacy perspective. The Video Privacy Protection Act (18 U.S.C. 2710) was formed in response to some stupidity in the late 1980s and this sort of data seems directly similar. True enough, there’s copyright issues here and that’s a fundamental difference in terms of vendor/publisher issues, but from a citizen privacy perspective, (note I didn’t say “consumer” just citizen), I see it as all but exactly the same kind of issue. (It’s also important to remember that most privacy laws are not clearly protected Constitutionally, they’re mostly implied or statutory. Still, we have certain expectations and if the law isn’t good enough, we need to amend it.)
If this really has to be done at all for the purposes of infringement, then a 3rd party needs to get involved to assess the alleged violations. That could potentially allow for at least assessment of claimed copyright issues without allowing for RIAA style individual targeting just yet. Especially in that – worst case – even if this does go all the way forward in the way most of us wouldn’t like, there’d be no need to target everyone. Just those who infringed by uploading copyright material. Not those who consumed it. (After all, the one thing you wouldn’t be able to prove is that the consumer knew they were using copyrighted material. Uploaders had agreed to rules on uploading, right?)
Watching this unfold is going to be both fascinating and quite possibly disturbing. At least three things are colliding; privacy, copyright and the whole publisher vs. distributor debate will likely come into play yet again.
Scott
Seeing Viacom get a step ahead in this case is not good news. While I don’t agree with the piracy on YouTube it is pushing the industry in the right direction by forcing content creators to catch up with technology and distribute content fairly online.
Chris Tew
https://twitter.com/MrMunchWeb
Phone numbers for the judge are listed on the Court’s web site:
http://www1.nys..._info.php?id=31
Remember, freedom of speech is what makes America great.