NEW YORK (AP) -- Dismissing privacy concerns, a federal judge overseeing a $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the popular online video-sharing service to disclose who watches which video clips and when.
A judge ordered YouTube to produce data on which of its videos get viewed most often and by whom.

A judge ordered YouTube to produce data on which of its videos get viewed most often and by whom.

U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton authorized full access to the YouTube logs after Viacom Inc. and other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips.

The data would not be publicly released but disclosed only to the plaintiffs, and it would include less specific identifiers than a user's real name or e-mail address.

Full story:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/07/03...t.ap/index.html

Why do I find this so disturbing?

Uh oh, that's so scary. I better stop watching the porn, lol. No seriously, part of the apeal is that you can remain anonymous, and now they have direct access to actua people, does that mean that they can call these people to the stand to testify?

Nah, but still, your email address is now out there, and that is bad news.

Another way of keeping an eye on people? What is next?

Because it's an obvious attack on civil liberties perhaps? I can't understand why the freedom of information act doesn't apply to the internet. Why does it matter if we're stopping in to watch old cartoon clips or music videos? If we're stopping in to watch those things it's because those things aren't ON t.v. anymore or we don't feel like sitting through the 23 hours of crap on MTV so that we can watch the 1 hours worth of music videos they still actually play on the hopes that we might see the one song we're waiting for. Problem is, how do we protest this, we have no voice. the u.s. gets to take down a web site that's visited internationally by millions of people. What gives them the right? Destroy the FCC and MPAA

I absolutely agree with you, Ravyns... The scary part about this isn't just the youtube issue (and it's scary,) but what's lying and waiting after that?!! It's just the beginning of something else, and I find it nothing less than disturbing.

and I need to add...
There is so many problems/concerns with this, I don't even know where to begin with it-

*sigh* We might as well rip up the constitution because we sure as hell don't follow it.

We just change the rules as we go along..

They'll be monitoring our emails now as well soon. Those of you who are on gmail (also run by google) might want to switch. I was thinking though, if I were going to protest. I would encourage everyone to start downloading videos from youtube *cough third party clients cough* and begin storing them up on any storage device availabe. I would then, hypothetically of course, encourage those people to start emailing and posting those videos any where they could/still allowed. Perhaps starting an email catalog for said videos. But then, that's just a hypothetical scenario, I would never actually encourage people to do such a thing.

That's pretty scary!

I agree. this has definitely gotten to a point where it's un-excusable. Something seriously needs to be done.

Of course it's the copyrighted ones that get viewed more. Stupid federal people. Half of them you can't even purchase anymore anyways! >.> Grr.

On a side note, my gmail has been over run with spam, so I dun use it.

umm you too? I chose Gmail to get away from it, yet I walk right into it..
These federal judges, they have authority (GOD) complexes.

I don't see the difference in what goes on in the privacy of your own home such as watching your television without being monitored, to watching something on your Pc screen. It's twisting the rules. What privacy?

Someone is currently lossing out or is looking to make even more money. That is always the first reason for anything like this, secondly, If and when theres a change over the same sort of thing will still happen.
Isnt Google gunna get there hands on it to?

If its on the net and available then Im gunna look at it!

You-Tube needs to tidy things up a bit.

I find it hard to believe that Google doesn't have either the necessary resources of technical know-how to make it increasingly more difficult to post commercial videos on Youtube. I think the more likely case is that they know that commercial videos are the key to making the site as popular as it has become.

It's unsurprising that the copyright holders are launching legal attacks - Google is making money out of their content. What's surprising is that it's taken this long for Viacomm to jump on the same bandwagon as Universal et al, who took a slice of Youtube's advertising revenue back in late 2006. I expect that exactly the same thing will happen here - they're just arguing over the percentages.

Yeah....so much for the constitution....our founding fathers must be rolling over in there graves....

I believe you're disturbed by it for the same reasons that I am disturbed by it. It's just one more way that the government can go in and "infringe" upon the private citizen, regardless of anonimity. Your computer's address is still attached to every anonymous screen name you create. And to believe that they can't find you because a screen name is "anonymous" is pretty ignorant. This is the computer age and their computers kick our personal home computer's asses.

yea but does this mean like if u watch part of a movie on Youtube that someone else put up, does that mean u will get in trouble for watching it?? doesnt make alot of sense, but yea does take away anonymity

sloooowly takin away the human rights haha, CONTROL

Bear in mind that our email adresses and real names won't be revealed, so ultimately our privacy isn't being taken away from us. It's sory of like an anonymous opinion poll, they'll know how many people were watching said video at any particular time, but they won't know specifically who it was.

Yea, but one where we have no interest in participating and besides what if They are looking at our IP address's, ect.......

Because IMO it's a veiled threat against whoever watches certain videos on YouTube.
It's intended to discourage the activity. "Look, we've got your IP address, and we could always come back and prosecute you if we wanted to."
No, it doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies either.

But what can we do about it. I re-iterate the point I made earlier. It isn't right that the U.S. can shut down an INTERNATIONAL web site. At the very most this case should appear in INTERNATIONAL courts. INTERpol should be sending out the subpoenas, not any national U.S. body. The Internet is NOT the sole domain of the U.S. It doesn't belong to them. Whether google is a U.S. company or not is irrelevant. It's a violation of the freedom of information act.

( This section does not apply to matters that--

sub section:(6) are personal and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy;

sub section:(7) could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy

Matter of time before they start logging all the sites we visit...

I figure they should force us all to install government issue Keystroke Loggers and Cameras to our computers. that way we have absolutely no privacy left at all. At least that would cut tax payer costs with these sham court cases that are decided before the evidence is ever even presented. The issue here isn't that Google is making money off copyrighted material. After all, none of us pay for youtube. If you mean the advertisements on the page, those aren't video specific and are randomized. The real issue is that viacom has MORE money then google, and more political ears. That's where this case was decided. At the bank.

I hear ya ... everything our forefathers fought and died for .. all the freedom we've enjoyed to be tossed aside led by a moron who calls it ' just a damn piece of paper' .

it's all very 'unAmerican' and not 'patriotic' .

I don't think so.

because youtube already does that in a way. the videos with the most viewed list. as well as the counters underneath - ( ratings) you can pull up the least viewed to the most.

I would definately agree that it's un-american in the sense that the public gets absolutely no say so in this. There has to be some way that this can be protested.

I agree, there's no need to follow the law since them random judge can just bend them.

*ahem*




and for part 2...

"In soviet Russia, Youtube watches you!"

Just needed to get those things off my chest...

C.R.E.A.M.

how would they know who you are, seeing as how you don't have to register any details to view the videos?

Your IP address is logged

How do they know e-mail address an name tho? more often than not you have more than one person using one IP address.

Well if you register a youtube account that info would be known and traceable. It wouldn't be linked by the IP, but that IP will still trace it to a specific computer/household. If it's a public computer then it's not going to be traced to a person, but it can be traced all the same.

Most people aren't going onto youtube from random public computers in order to avoid being traced by this so it's still an invasion of privacy imo. It also opens the doors for more invasive policies to gain traction.

I wonder what would happen if Google and Youtub decided to move it head quarters out of the states. I know a copy right is a copy right but at least the individual user wouldn't be held resposible for viewing what ever google allowed to be viewed.

Take the servers to Russia we have not jurisdiction for the content thats hosted by there servers if i do remember right. Also there ways to hide your ip with all the government trickery to try to monitor us theres always going to be them smart ppl that say hell no this wont go and find away to outsmart them.

IP addresses change, dont they?

For DSL/Cable internet connections I believe they can

I believe if you reset something with your modem or router... not real good with networking. Either way the ip address can be used to locate where the information is traveling to/from as far as I know. With the know-how you could get around this or block it.