YouTube Hands Over User Info To Fox

An anonymous reader writes "Tech Crunch has an article about YouTube identifying and handing over a user's information after a request from Fox. 'Three weeks after receiving a subpoena from the U.S. District Court in Northern California, YouTube has reportedly identified a user accused by 20th Century Fox Television of uploading episodes of the show 24 a week prior to their running on television. That user, named ECOTtotal, is also alleged to have uploaded 12 episodes of The Simpsons, some quite old. Apparently Google and YouTube were willing and able to identify the owner of the username ECOTtotal, according to a report on InternetNews.com.'"

Comments

Willing and able

[ShaunC]

"Apparently Google and YouTube were willing" ... to comply with a subpoena from a US District Court. I think most companies would do the same thing.

Re:Willing and able

[paranode]

Not only would they, they pretty much have to if they don't want law enforcement just coming in and confiscating all of their hardware.

Re:Willing and able

[Chelloveck]

Yeah, but "Google Complies With The Law" doesn't make as good a headline...

Re:Willing and able

[Dog-Cow]

Outside of privacy-related websites, there are none that promise privacy. At best, they will claim not to give/sell your information to others (read: spammers), but to expect anyone to promise to disobey the law to protect identity is ludicrous.

Re:Willing and able

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

This case is also different because the person put them on YouTube BEFORE they aired, so this is a bit more serious than just uploading the video. Non-Story.

Re:Willing and able

[rossz]

The difference was the RIAA wants to go on random fishing expeditions, hoping to find "something". Sometimes they don't even bother with that and make random ass, more often wrong that right, guesses.

In the case of Fox and YouTube, they were looking for the one person who uploaded very specific videos.

Re:Willing and able

[teal_]

Hrm, that's a valid point of view actually, I guess I was wrong. Thanks!

Re:Willing and able

[rossz]

Ah, shit. I was able to convince someone of my point of view on slashdot! That's a sign of the apocalypse! WE'RE DOOMED!!!

Re:Willing and able

[bky1701]

Unless that law is in China...

Willing to identify?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were subpoenaed, they didn't have much choice. I hate the MPAA/RIAA/Studios as much as the next guy, but neither Fox or YouTube seem unrealistic here.

Re:Willing to identify?

[Radon360]

Seems to me that the issue at hand is more of a precursor to all the RIAA/MPAA/copyright gobbledygook. This someone was posting shows before they aired. It would be akin to publishing a company's trade secrets before they went public with them (i.e. leaking insider information that would influence the company's stock price).

Yes, the copyright stuff applies in whatever sense that it does, but if I were Fox, that would be taking a back seat to getting someone that was leaking "my" shows before they aired. Of course, once that someone were caught, "I" wouldn't be afraid to add copyright infringement to the list of charges.

Re:Willing to identify?

[Radon360]

This someone was posting shows before they aired. It would be akin to publishing a company's trade secrets before they went public with them And if they could get it equated to a trade secret, that would be a nice thing to nail them for.

How about lost revenue due to reduced ad revenue, resulting from reduced viewership? If people know ahead of time what is going to happen in the next cliffhanger, they would be less apt to make arrangements to watch it. Draw a parallel to all the reality TV series for a moment. How interesting does the show series become when you know who is going to win in the last episode? Why do you think they sign the participants to "hush agreements" with stiff penalties? If people lose interest in a show, it becomes harder to demand higher ad revenue for placement during the show airtimes since the ratings would show that less people would be watching. (higher ratings = higher price commanded for ad airtime)

IANAL (obviously) but what laws are being broken here besides copyright infringement?

How about simple theft? The shows in question weren't broadcast or otherwise distributed to the general public in some fashion by Fox. If these shows were posted to YouTube after they aired, then copyright infringement would be pretty much all that Fox would have as legal ammunition. However, someone illegally removed (stole) these shows from one of the production facilities. What if I were to grab a copy of my company's quarterly results before they were published/publically released and spread them all over the internet? Obviously, there would be hell to pay. However, if I did the same thing after the company published its results, there really wouldn't be any harm that would come from it.

Re:Willing to identify?

[drinkypoo]

How about simple theft? The shows in question weren't broadcast or otherwise distributed to the general public in some fashion by Fox. If these shows were posted to YouTube after they aired, then copyright infringement would be pretty much all that Fox would have as legal ammunition. However, someone illegally removed (stole) these shows from one of the production facilities.

Okay just STOP THERE. You do NOT know what you are talking about.

Media is often distributed to certain individuals before it is aired on TV or released in theaters, as the case may be. Fox has not publicly made the assertion that he stole the discs. He MAY have done this, but there is NO reason to believe that it is the case. And to claim that someone stole the discs from a Fox production facility is just ignorant until Fox tells us that is true. Otherwise, it's safer to assume that someone had them for a legitimate reason, and either allowed them to make a copy, or they are "them" and uploaded it themselves. Telecine releases of movies are often made in the theater where the movie will be shown and most screeners you can download are made from screening copies intentionally distributed for review.

Finally, someone who was in the production facility wouldn't necessarily need to actually take any discs anywhere. They might conceivably have copied them while onsite, one disc at a time (per visit?) with a computer on the site, or one they brought with them. This is almost more likely than stealing it, because stealing the masters or screening duplicates would be detected far more rapidly than copying them.

What if I were to grab a copy of my company's quarterly results before they were published/publically released and spread them all over the internet? Obviously, there would be hell to pay.

Yes, for dissemination of private information that does not belong to you. Guess what? It's still not called theft unless you physically remove them from the enterprise. You CAN steal a copy of data. You cannot steal the data without stealing all of the copies.

However, if I did the same thing after the company published its results, there really wouldn't be any harm that would come from it.

You could repost the figures, but copying and pasting the data in its entirety, including the presentation (formatting etc) would be a violation of copyright. The first part is because no one owns facts. The second part is because it's not your copyrighted information. Putting information on the web (or in a quarterly report) doesn't revoke its copyright.

All you are doing is speculating wildly. I realize this is a favorite slashbot pastime, but give it up already. You don't know shit about what happened, and neither do the rest of us.

Summary is very misleading...

[msauve]

Providing information in response to a court subpeona is very different than doing so "after a request from Fox."

Got ta say.....

[edwardpickman]

This is an obvious case of thieft and they have every right to plug the leak at their end. Posting episodes before they air has to be coming from their end so they have the right to locate and fire/prosecute the source. It has nothing to do with fair use it has to do with protecting their work. Advertisers can potentially cut funding and kill the series if they don't defend it. Youtube really has no choice since they'd be protecting the thief. Supporting the people involved harms those supporting fair use since it appears they are supporting outright thieft. A line has to be drawn and they crossed it in this case.

Re:how does this work?

[amRadioHed]

He looks more like he was on the receiving end of a squadron of rabid lawyers.

Rich industrialists & charity work

[jmorris42]

> This is a company whose founders contribute very little back of their wealth to charitable causes
> and instead choose to spend it on 747's with waterbeds and other such items.

Sounds like they gave something back then, bet they made friends at Boeing at any rate and kept a few ordinary workers gainfully employed.

Getting involved in charities is something rich industrialists should NOT do until they retire from day to day operations, until then they are performing a far greater service to society by PRODUCING WEALTH. After they tire of working eighty hour weeks creating wealth and start feeling their mortality is the time to use their share of the wealth they created to leave monuments to themselves. And I'm good with that too, after all ya can't take it with you and leaving craploads of cash to your offspring is an almost sure fire way to destroy em.

Re:It was only a matter of time

[GreyPoopon]

If this guy was smart, he'd have uploaded this stuff from an open access point anyway (either an unsecured AP locally, or free public wireless).

Ah, but given the fact that he uploaded episodes of 24 _before_ they aired, the list of suspects is already narrowed significantly. Searching for someone who would have had access to the material prior to the air date and lives near the unsecured AP or free public wireless network will provide a workable list for law enforcement. Unless this turkey is working as an anonymous team member with somebody else (IE, there's no relationship between where the media was acquired and where it was uploaded), he will almost certainly get caught.

Falsely Believing You are Anonymous...

[CompMD]

...on the Internet can lead to very bad or unexpected things for you or those around you. Just this week someone "anonymously" posting on a local newspaper online forum caused a mistrial in a multiple first degree murder and aggravated arson case where I live.

Re:Google

[krotkruton]

RRRRRight. So let's say you see a guy get robbed in the street and can identify the robber. The police find out you witnessed the robbery and subpeona you to appear as a witness. Are you evil for giving up the identity of the robber?

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that whoever uploaded this video early was breaking some law or another. How is it evil to turn him in, especially if your it states in your privacy policy that you will comply with law enforcement? If they had refused to hand over the information, we'd probably be getting people complaining about how Google is aiding and concealing criminals.

A sarcastic "Don't be evil" is not an insightful (much less thoughtful, intelligent, or unique) response to every single action Google takes for the rest of eternity.

Re:It was only a matter of time

[roger6106]

A previous post

The full DVD of the first four episodes was ALL OVER Usenet on the 7th.

Thousands of people DLed that, and one guy encoded it for submission to YouTube.

No insider job here.

Re:This really is theft

[SydShamino]

No, in this case you are wrong. Until the information has been made public, it could be claimed (and a jury would likely agree) that the material is a Fox trade secret. It contains plot twists and other elements that are confidential until their air date, so that their impact has not been diluted by pre-emptive copies. Imagine if a writer for a soap opera saw a plot twist on a pre-release version of 24, then wrote that same twist into his or her soap to air before the 24 air date.

Federal law does prohibit stealing of trade secrets, and it is classified as "theft". See for example the recent conviction of a Coca-Cola ex-secretary, who attempted to sell formula information to Pepsi-Cola. Copying the data and providing it to Pepsi did not cause Coke to lose possession of their formula, but it did potentially deprive them of a trade secret.

Before you respond, please read through and understand Title 18, United States Code, Section 1832(a)(1-3).

Re:Google

[Xanius]

For me the thing isn't that he posted episodes of the simpsons, I think it was more related to posting episodes of 24 before the air date. Which is afaik illegal because it can be argued that the company literally lost money due to people not watching the episode at air time, causing a loss in commercial revenue.

Re:OT

[McFadden]

Enlighten me?

The first post had the phrase "There's no place like 127.0.0.1" in his signature sparking the usual slashdot tradition of debating anything except the actual featured article.