Comments on: Google to Reveal Youtube Viewing Details to Viacom

By: Navin

Navin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:55:30 +0000

Exactly my thought DaCapn……..

It isn’t about only this ruling….its the fact that even a company like Google is being targeted in the so-called war against piracy….for all you know, these ip’s may be labeled as “illegal ip’s” (coz there’s proof available wid Viacom), and if these ips are perhaps sold to some major isp, it may decide to ban all these ip’s labeling them as illegal users….and even guys like Changlinn may come under fire for their net usage…..infact if I remember right, there was a discussion in the UK or Australian parliament regarding ways to curb illegally uploaded videos and they had suggested something like this……

collect user data from popular video-sharing websites( they even suggested something like encoding these illegally embedded video pages wid some sort of code tht wud log the viewer’s ip) ….Obviously, everyone soon dropped the idea wen they came to their senses!!

By: DaCapn

DaCapn — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:33:45 +0000

150,000 clips out of how many on YouTube? How much could we estimate that as? 0.01%? With such a small fraction of the videos in violation, how many irrelevant data entries will they get?

If you know what the clips are, tell them, they’ll take them down. They take down copy written material all the time. If they want logs, let them ask for logs on the clips they mentioned. I’d still tell them where to stick it, but it would be a more reasonable request.

Also, since they could only be catching people on a streaming mechanism (receiving content only), how much will each case be liable for in the first place? $30? They can’t very well make the case that they do with P2P that your download perpetuates downloads. They can obviously attempt to catch uploaders but this seems to target viewers.

Can we assume they’re referring to YouTube and not Google logins?

Follow-up thought, I’m willing to bet that they’ll be interested in mining these IPs against data for P2P traffic.

By: Changlinn

Changlinn — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:35:32 +0000

I was searching for something else and clicked on what I thought I was looking for only to see Home and Away (a horrid Australian Drama). I read the comments thinking it was mind blowing someone thought this show was worth the trouble of recording, let alone uploading and sharing to youtube.
Then I went on my merry way looking for what I was actually looking for. I think this is the only time I have actually used it to view copyright material, please don’t tell me I will be going to court for that… I wouldn’t be able to hold a straight face.
The other stuff they will see me look at is stuff I have posted, movies of my kids etc, so yeah sue me.
I don’t understand how google can even keep logs for longer than a couple days, I read somewhere every minute 17minutes of footage is uploaded to youtube… how is that even possible to be logged, why is that even logged, who the hell goes through these logs…
Heh hear is a though, google being the nice netizens that they are offer to just ftp it to Viacomms servers, thereby DOS’sing them out of existence.

By: Creeker

Creeker — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:31:30 +0000

Log-in “information” up there is unnecessarily vague. According to the order, it’s log-in “name”. I couldn’t tell you why the quoted passage reads the way it does, though. I think we’re just fine.

By: razta

razta — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:06:31 +0000

@Creeker
The above may be incorrect or I may be misunderstanding it.

“must hand over to Viacom its viewing log – which includes users’ log-in information and their IP address”

By: Creeker

Creeker — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:54:08 +0000

@razta
It doesn’t assert anything about passwords above – people are just asking questions.

Just check out the coverage about this, and you can find the judge’s order. Just the IP address, username, video name and timestamp were ordered to be turned over. Looks like they’re close to reaching a deal, anyway – here’s the current state of play, as far as I can tell:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9989783-93.html

By: razta

razta — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:39:16 +0000

@pixelm
It does state above that Google will be handing over user usernames and passwords, unless the information above is incorrect, users should still be concerned. As for Viacom knowing what ive watched, I couldnt care less, unless they were planning on using that information for their own financial gain. The only thing im concerned about is my personal password being passed to god knows who over at Viacom, copied by god knows who and then distributed or sold to god knows who.

By: pixelm

pixelm — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:32:13 +0000

D3 and Navin- in order to get to viewers with IP addresses, another judge has to rule that an ISP needs to give up that information. Viacom hasn’t asked for it and it’s highly unlikely they would get it.

But Viacom has also said that the information could be anonymized adding another level between users and the information to be disclosed.

The point is that Viacom can only use the information they get to prove copyright infringement against YouTube. Users do not need to be concerned that anyone (other than Google) will know what they were watching.

By: d347hm4n

d347hm4n — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:25:09 +0000

@ Navin, the way ut us worded it would make it appear that they are ><, not good

By: Navin

Navin — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:51:18 +0000

Does the ruling mean tht Viacom will have access to not only my IP but my username and password as well?? Atleats tht’s wht it seems….

And I don’t get it…..why target the viewers?? Isn’t it the video posters who are to be held??

Does this mean tht even if I used Youtube to view a video of my cousin’s first baby take her first steps, then I’ve ended up giving my password to Viacom??

I just hope the same thing tht happened with AOL doesn’t happen this time as well (except this will be in a age tht people claim are the most expressive)