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YouTube Must Give All User Histories To Viacom
psyopper writes "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users' privacy, the judge's ruling (.pdf) described that argument as 'speculative' and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four terabyte hard drives." Update: 07/03 18:05 GMT by T : Brian Aker, now of MySQL but long ago Slashdot's "database thug," writes a journal entry on how companies could intelligently treat such potentially sensitive user data.
Another company to purposely avoid.
hmmm, thats a nasty precedent.
Presumably, legal discovery is usually limited to the domain in which the lawsuit is operating. In a case like this, is it really appropriate for Google to provide such vast quantities of information, 99.9% of which is almost certainly irrelevant to the case? Shouldn't there be an appeals process Google can use that basically says "that judge doesn't know what (s)he's talking about, Viacom don't need this information"?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
That must've been a hacker who got onto my computer who was searching for "bunny", "kitties", "puppies" and "babies".
I only search for "fire", "car crashes", "backyard wrestling" and "boobs".
*grunt*
>.>
I fail to see why they would need to know who watched the videos.. uploader? Maybe, but viewers?
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
Isn't there some law that, unless you are a convicted monopolist, you can't be expected to help the competition ? I'm sure Viacom will do nothing with this data to help its own advertising business, no sirree.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Why would a company keep all of that information, especially when they know there is a high degree of certainty that they will be involved in some legal troubles later. Keeping this information is just asking for trouble. There probably are a few ways they use it, but it could easily be done without needing to keep a history. View counts, for instance, could just be incremented, and immediately the information about who viewed it could be thrown out. What about all of the related videos? Just create those links and throw out the information about the individuals that clicked between videos? It just doesn't make sense that when you will be offering a service that could come back to bit you in the rear, why would you keep information that could potentially show that you are doing something in a gray-area?
Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google's liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.
So anonymize the data. Ask your friendly local CS student for instructions. You can get all your statistics from that.
Oh, that isn't actually the reason you want the data? Yeah, thought so. DIAF
Now that they gave out my private information to another company without my consent i can now sue google and become rich...I pitty the suckers that bought stock in google.
People will find out about my Eddie Izzard fetish..."The death star must have had a cantina..."
Sheldon
The users need to intervene as a class and request a protective order. They probably can't get the subpoena quashed but they probably can get the judge to limit what Viacom can do with the data and who can see it. They should ask him to limit access to the data to outside experts sworn to secrecy.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Why would Google even keep this info. We seriously need to learn to stop tracking this kind of stuff. It's like the Patriot act and libraries. When the act passed and libraries found out that checkout records of their users could be used in court most libraries simply stopped keeping a record of them. Companies like Google need to start doing the same.
So, if google has taken down a video from some non-viacom entity, for any reason, viacom gets a copy, in violation of the original owners' copyrights?
Also, I wonder if google had to take down any kiddie porn vids ... seems we could get viacom for possessing child porn.
Kevin Smith on Prince
They're arguing that YouTube gets more viewership from copyrighted materials than non-copyrighted stuff, and they want the viewer logs to prove that. Then they'll go after Google and others for more money because they're profiting more from it.
I'm not saying that I agree with decision (I don't), but it's not like it's entirely unmotiviated.
On the other hand, I think people really need to start showing up outside the homes of the various lawyers, judges, and corporate executives involved and protest this kind of bullshit. They need to be followed into public places and shouted at about their behavior.
Who needs to win cases when you can receive millions of dollars in data simply by going through discovery proceedings?
Every single user of the Internet should be OUTRAGED about this judge's neglect of basic privacy statutes. I dispatched an email to YouTube about this order, urging them to fight it with all their power.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Except that due to government manipulation of the economy, congressman have been bought and paid for by companies like Viacom, and will readily pass legislation favoring such companies. Its one huge protection racket favoring the wealthiest and largest organizations.
Why is Google keeping such detailed logs? If Google had anonymised their IP address logs to begin with, they could have avoided this.
They should have taken the white house's lead and preemptively destroyed any computer records they didn't want coming out in court.
This is breaking european law. It is personal data (a log file with IP addresses is). So I really hope that Google do not have that sort of data in the US.
I will be reporting this to the danish data privacy agency. I suggest every other euopean reader here also contacts their local data privacy agency, or some EU institutuion.
Yeah. It's a good thing that Viacomm isn't a multinational organization that, through lobbying and PACs, donates tons of money to politicians...not to mention donations to politicians from its upper management on a private basis, otherwise I'd be worried too!
:(
Oh crap
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Not much Google can do now if ordered by a court to turn it over, but I'm a bit (lot) creeped out by why they think they need to keep this type of detailed personalized history in the first place. Having the history means that a court/government/disgruntled employee/future employer/hacker may get access to it.
If Google really need to target advertising to what we're watching, searching for, etc, etc (big brother - yuck), then couldn't they at least do so in a more anonymous form - rather than storing "user Joe just watched Viacom's boobie-jiggle on YouTube on July 3rd", just do user[joe].interests[interest-class[boobie-jiggle]]++.
I guess Google don't consider being big brother incarnate to be "evil", but I think most of their user base do!
Here's a list. They've got their hands in a lot of different areas, it'll be tough to avoid them entirely.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Here's the list of all the brands you now want to avoid because Viacom is being a bitch.
media networks,bet networks,bet,bet j,mtv networks, atomfilms, addictinggames, cmt, comedy central, gametrailers, harmonix, logo, mtv, mtv2, mtvn international, mtvu, mtv tr3s, neopets, nickelodeon - nick jr., nick at nite, noggin, parentsconnect, quizilla, rhapsody, shockwave, spike tv, the n, tv land, vh1, vh1 classic, vh1 soul, virtual worlds, xfire, filmed entertainment, paramount pictures corp, paramount pictures, dreamworks studios, paramount vantage, mtv films, nickelodeon movies, home entertainment, global reach, brand index
I'll save you the trouble, my IP is 127.0.0.1
Anyone have some boilerplate forms and step by step instructions to file the necessary legal objections to this? I would sure do it and I'll bet enough other people would to keep the court busy just reading the stuff for quite a while.
Still not too hot?
You shouldn't underestimate the damage a large corporation can do with private data. Most of them are bestest friends forever with the government, and of those who aren't, few of them will stand up to the government. I'd say that if Viacom has this info it's as good as in US gov. hands.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So.. what happens when we Viacom can't find a judge on this planet who's IP address isn't on the list that has viewed copyrighted material?
Any defense attorney can get the case thrown out of court based on possible bias of any judge that's on that list.
Defective Logic
Why do companies keep collecting every bit of data they can like this? Why does Google need to know the user name of the person watching the videos? Even the IP address is questionable. If they want to track people artificially inflating their views, wouldn't it be simple to keep one day's worth of views by IP address? What value do they get from keeping all the viewing history?
Meanwhile, Viacom gets user names, IP addresses, and the list of every video watched. If they are smart, they will realize this is way better then any survey or Nelson rating they ever get. And they got it nearly for free. You can be certain that other companies will be very interested in this data too. Can they just give Viacom a call and get it? Did the court put any restraints on Viacom sharing this data?
I hope you haven't watched anything on YouTube you don't want to be contacted about. Now excuse me while I go log out of my account. I don't think I've watched anything I don't want shared, but at the same time I would rather not risk having someone else come through and make decisions about me based on my random viewing habits.
IAAL.
When someone asks for discovery outside any reasonable boundry, attorneys refer to it as a "fishing expedition". Here, they just want to see the user patterns, so that they can do a stat analysis and figure out new ways to handicap a service they don't control.
The overarching reason for all of this litigation is only secondarily about copyright. The primary reason is so that they can learn and when they ask the "series of tubes" know-little (but bought and paid for) congress for son of DMCA they know how to hamstring.
While the Viacoms and Sonys of the world don't like the internet and can't kill it, they can try to hobble it at every turn. This, HDCP, etc are all part of one grand scheme to control the pipeline. "child porn" is the excuse to filter at the ISP......
Think of 1978....they controlled your tv, and that's the way they liked it. That is the ideal.
What is viacom going to do with the user data? Start suing youtube viewers?
Way to copy RIAA and SCO.
RIAA and SCO should sue viacom for totally rocking their style.
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
Quick, go search for videos of "Viacom executives and lawyers should be burned alive so we can piss on their ashes".
Meanwhile, by ordering Google to turn over copies of ALL videos that were taken down for copyright violations, haven't they been ordered, in fact, to knowingly violate copyrights?
Interestingly though, we now have a court finding that IP addresses are not personally identifying information. Bad news for the RIAA.
What would be the purpose of this? If you watch a video on YouTube, even if its not there legally, you are doing nothing illegal. Or at least nothing provably illegal. The person uploading these copyrighted materials is doing something definitely illegal, but couldn't they do figure out who that is already by just crawling the site for their content and making a note of the username, and then pestering Google for the IP address?
Something doesn't make sense here. My guess is they more or less know who is pirating their content, but what they are really interested in is who is pirating their partners'/competitors' content, and they are going to try to sell that info on to their competitors. Just a guess.
Google's Blog claims that they started taking steps to anonymize their logs a year ago, keeping "only" 18 months worth of identifiable data, to be implemented "within a year's time".
It seems likely that this wouldn't have been soon enough for any of this material to have been anonymized before Viacom's suit, since it was filed the same month they made this announcement.
... could put "infringing" content over the top.
Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users' privacy, the judge's ruling (.pdf) described that argument as "speculative"
This must be some new use of the word "speculative" with which I am unfamiliar.
I consider this to be outrageous and a major breach of everyones privacy. Now viacom will basically be able to mine the database and basically do whatever it wants that suits its fancy. Its another reason to boycott Viacomm. But as well, we should be asking Google to stop recording logs of what videos people use, or destroy them after a week. The view logging is not needed for other features, like comments, view count, ratings, favourite lists, and so on.
Google has NEVER fought to keep any of their customer's information private. The Chinese government made hundreds of arrests after Google handed over people's search patterns. If you want to keep something private, don't use Google.
Abolish copyright. End the insanity.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A fair bit of people seem to worry that the data will be used for other purposes that the case where it is requested. It is my understanding that the material is confinded to that case only as it can't be sold or used by Viacom for its own buisness. Or does that work differently in USA law?
Carbon based humanoid in training.
I have pretty regularly cleared my viewing history on YouTube. (Go to QuickList->Viewing History->Clear Viewing History on the YouTube interface).
Did YouTube keep a copy of it anyway? Are they turning that over to Viacom?
If so, I'd like to file a bug against the Clear Viewing History feature as it obviously did not clear the viewing history.
Stuart Eichert
I'll supply them for you, you lazy person you!
That must've been a hacker who got onto my computer who was searching for "bunny", "kitties", "puppies" and "babies".
I only search for "fire", "car crashes", "backyard wrestling" and "boobs".
*grunt*
Yes, that was indeed uncalled for. Especially the one about your mom. Sorry.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
It sounds to me like the judge is essentially saying that Google/YouTube didn't adequately demonstrate that privacy is being violated for such an order. Actually, from what I read I was fairly impressed with what the judge had to say and the rulings on some of the other issues involved (Viacom didn't get nearly as much as they were hoping for- source code), but it sounds like Google/YouTube did not do a very good job of demonstrating the privacy concerns.
I wish I had mod points right now. While I think the job very probably misevaluated the facts, he did so based on Google's prior statements that IP addresses are not enough to personally identify the users. There's a strong implication that that the judge would have decided differently had a showing been made that the log would allow personal identification of the viewers.
What this means is that, even though he seems to have made improper conclusions of fact, the judge is applying a rule of law that does take personal privacy into account. If someone could produce proper evidence that the log does allow personal identification, the judge might change his mind. Let's hope someone will rise to the challenge.
This was done by order of a judge in the united states district court, southern district of New York.
Bush had nothing to do with it.
The statement that Viacom getting every individual user's history, regardless of any individual's actions (whether they even viewed a Viacom-originated clip) will invade each user's privacy is not "speculative". It is a 100% guarantee that those millions of people's privacy will be invaded, though assured protection by Google's privacy policy.
The 4th Amendment says our privacy right will be protected by due process. A judge who rules that 100% certainty is "speculative" is not the process we're due. Google should fight this tyrannical ruling. And that judge should be forced to retire.
--
make install -not war
The judge making this senile ruling is Louis Stanton, who was born in 1927, 81 years ago. He was appointed by Ronald Reagan, 23 years ago.
Most Americans have to retire when they're 65. This guy is still sitting there, ruling on American activities that were invented only when he was already past retirement age.
Let him rule on whips & buggies. He's obviously unfit to rule on Internet privacy, and has even forgotten the 4th Amendment.
--
make install -not war
All that money you were making from it, have fun paying it all and then some to the hundreds of lawyers you are going to have to put on the payroll to defend it.
Here's a little secret for you guys, you can't turn over what you don't have. Stop tracking every thing we do and it'll be amazing how many lawsuits will stall before they even get started.
>You could post your own flash videos on your own web site.
How will that help when the reported problem is that Google is being ordered to turn over the *viewing* histories of its users?
I don't see anything about the users' viewing history in that article. It says he overturned the order for search and video identification algorithms.
Yeah, they really ought to send them a printout.
As I understand it, one of the main points in the GPL is that if you create a derivative work based on GPL'ed code, you are obligated to release the source to your modifications when distributing source/binaries to other folks. This is a different kind of "free" than "I can take this code and do whatever the fuck I want with it".
The mechanism that the GPL uses to enforce this is the copyright owned by the original creator of the work. If copyright were abolished, it would be legally OK if I took the source code to Firefox, created and released a derivative web browser, and refused to release any of the modified source to anyone.
Of course, since this is /., I'm sure you knew this :)
find / -name "*.sig" | xargs rm