The Google-Viacom showdown over the handover of YouTube user data appears to be over. The two sides agreed to changes in a previous ruling that would have required Google to hand over user id’s, IP addresses and a list of all viewed YouTube videos to Viacom in connection with their ongoing copyright infringement litigation.
After an online uprising against the order, Viacom tried to assert that they never requested personally identifiable information (they did), and later promised not to use the information to sue individuals. The value of that promise was questioned by us and many others.
The new order, filed this evening, states that Google will substitue user id’s and IP addresses for anonymous but unique identifiers. The full order is below, but the key language is:
When producing data from the Logging Database pursuant to the Order, Defendants shall substitute values while preserving uniqueness for entries in the following fields: User ID, IP Address and Visitor ID. The parties shall agree as promptly as feasible on a specific protocol to govern this substitution whereby each unique value contained in these fields shall be assigned a correlative unique substituted value, and preexisting interdependencies shall be retained in the version of the data produced. Defendants shall promptly (no later than 7 business days after execution of this Stipulation) provide a proposed protocol for this substitution. Defendants agree to reasonably consult with Plaintiffs’ consultant if necessary to reach agreement on the protocol.
Without IP addresses and user names it will be significantly more difficult for Viacom to determine which individuals may have viewed any particular video. I for one have no further objections to this data being handed over from a privacy standpoint, although I still urge Viacom to stop the endless litigation and consider more innovative business models around their content.
google viacom youtube agreement - Get more Legal Forms
doesnt matter, im still on viacoms side. Too much copyright infringement on youtube.
Good, still hate Viacom.
As with the Netflix research data (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9826608-46.html), there’s still some risk that this data could be de-anonymized, especially if the visitor information included anything that could be correlated to publicly spiderable content like comments, favorites, groups, etc.
It is still personally identifiable. Just not as easy to do. It’s just like the AOL leak that included unique ID’s.
For example if you looked at some videos I have up for family. 90% of the unique id’s that visited those videos would be from family members.
You could easily determine who is who out of that list of id’s including every video they have watched.
If you gave me that list I could easily tell you every video on youtube my mother has watched for example.
Pfft…why don’t ViaCom just do a deal with Google and get it over and done with.
Instead of getting all the data, and realising its going to take them alot of resources and time to go through it all.
“Without IP addresses and user names it will be significantly more difficult for Viacom to determine which individuals may have viewed any particular video.”
Did you ever consider that they were being honest when they said they didn’t want that information to pursue RIAA style cases against users?
If they did, they would not have agreed to this amendment.
I still think that Viacom is onto something re: the Youtube founders and employees. I’d be surprised if they weren’t going to be getting at least an indicator of whether downloads/uploads were from people at Youtube/Google.
If the founders and employees actually seeded Youtube with copyrighted material and Google purchased Youtube knowing that fact (or being willfully ignorant of that fact), it makes it a lot harder for Google to keep a straight face as it asks for the shelter of the DMCA safe harbor.
The youtube videos chiding the Viacom founders reminded me of the Britney Spears video from that Chris Cocker moron. Kids these days are REALLY dumb.
Looksgood
I would hate to be a google/viacom corporate lawyer right now. Viacom is ridiculous. Viacom, get over it. We are in internet.2008. Look at this story here…. http://www.gothamtechminute.blogspot.com
YouTube is probably the cleanest site as of today (IMO). Finding illegal content on YT competitors is much easy…
The user ID info on YouTube is tricky — it could be used by YouTube to prove that Viacom’s own people uploaded their shows to YouTube to boost their rating, or, according to conspiracy theorists (read Cuban), to undermine YouTube.
Viacom wised up, basically.
Irony of ironies, Viacom is being sued by Konami, a video game maker, for infringing the latter’s copyrights/patents.
Here is a report from Boston Herald: “Konami Corp., the Japanese creator of the “Dance Dance Revolution” video game, sued Viacom Inc.’s Harmonix studio in Cambridge, claiming its “Rock Band” game violates patents…”
No me parece que importa
It may be from something good?
I guess it is the beginning
Youtube es un gran sitio espero que no será afectada
Youtube share with Google?
Mess with Google at your own Peril. Based on what they did with Commscore ( http://www.savingtoinvest.com/.....venge.html ) you don’t want to annoy them. They have got so much money and dominance in the online media space that they can pretty much crush most competitors. Still all these lawsuits keep all the “liars” employed.
I am not a fan of ViaCom, but I am a fan of content producers, webmasters, and site owners who produce original itellectual property. Content and content producers are the Kings. Our IP must be protected. The legal-wink-and-a-nod loopholes of the DMCA is no excuse for enabling copyright violation. Napster was wrong - that ship has sailed. So why are we still on this boat?
I think Viacom is just looking after their property - although they seriously need to think of a way to make it accessible to the rest of us.
YouTube, on the other hand, has known about the copyright infringement for years and had decided to not pay attention to it. Like this article mentions: YouTube can’t win from any angle.
With replaced IDs they can still point at viewers / uploads and file another request for data saying “who are these people and what are their IPs?”, so they are still perfectly capable of finding and suing people.
The problem I have is that this is sifting for information instead of policing their content appropriately. And in that respect, the cat’s been out of the bag for almost a decade now. Time to adapt business models to deal with the new markets instead of clinging to old unworkable models.
Viacom needs to adapt to the new world if it doesn’t want to fail like others, the Internet revolution is now running at full throttle speed.
As for Google, they finally have some deep reflexions to do about their logging habits and privacy now that other companies want to know their employees logs only on presumption.
A free world of free speech, respect, privacy and other rights (the real rights that belongs to the people, POWER TO THE PEOPLE!) will triumph in the end.
-Always remember that the majority has not to pay for a few idiots.