gHacks technology news » viacom http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:22:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Judge orders Google to hand over Youtube User Data to Viacom http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/03/judge-orders-google-to-hand-over-youtube-user-data-to-viacom/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/03/judge-orders-google-to-hand-over-youtube-user-data-to-viacom/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:16:08 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5191 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.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/03/judge-orders-google-to-hand-over-youtube-user-data-to-viacom/feed/ 2 Viacom sends takedown notice to author of video clip http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/31/viacom-sends-takedown-notice-to-author-of-video-clip/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/31/viacom-sends-takedown-notice-to-author-of-video-clip/#comments Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:14:48 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/31/viacom-sends-takedown-notice-to-author-of-video-clip/ The following story is to good to just pass a long. Imagine you create a video and upload it to Youtube. You do get some exposure and someday you realize that a tv show, in this case Web Junk 2.0 on VH1, played your video on their show without asking for your permission in first place.

You then decide to get a copy of that part of the show and publish it on Youtube again to be able to comment on it on your own blog. Guess what happens next ? Right, you get a takedown notice by the guys who took your video in first place without authorization.

Common sense tells me that this is wrong. I’m not a lawyer though and it might be a perfectly clear case but it sounds wrong. You do give Youtube the (non-exclusive) right to redistribute the videos without asking for your permission and it could be possible that Youtube has a deal with Viacom in place that allows them to pick videos for their show.

It could be. It still sounds wrong though. Below is the original clip, the other video was taken down unfortunately.

Read More:

The Knight Shift

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