Judge orders Google to hand over Youtube User Data to Viacom

Have you been watching videos lately on Youtube ? A judge ordered Google to hand over all video history data of the website to Viacom which is suing Google since 2007 for publishing copyrighted clips on Youtube. History data includes IPs and possible usernames of users who watched videos on Youtube and third party websites which probably includes every single human being on this planet.

Additionally Google will have to turn in every video that they took down from the website after it was published there. The logs have to be handed over on a set of four Terabyte hard drives but it is very likely that Google will appeal the decision.

It’s interesting to note that Viacom “also requested YouTube’s source code, the code for identifying repeat copyright infringement uploads, copies of all videos marked private, and Google’s advertising database schema.” (according to Wired)

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.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation published an article about the judge ruling on their blog yesterday which is definitely worth a read and brings up some good points.

The court’s order grants Viacom’s request and erroneously ignores the protections of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), and threatens to expose deeply private information about what videos are watched by YouTube users

The order is clearly a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act. Will be interesting how this will turn out.