YouTube And Viacom Reach Agreement In Copyright Case
Posted on: Tuesday, 15 July 2008, 16:52 CDT
Google and Viacom came to an agreement on Monday regarding a longstanding legal battle over copyright infringement allegations that many of Google’s YouTube users were illegally sharing Viacom’s material.
Earlier this month, Judge Louis Stanton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered Google to give its YouTube user data to Viacom Inc and other plaintiffs so that they could prepare a confidential report on piracy violations on the video-sharing site.
In wanting to protect the privacy of its users, Google has now agreed to hand over a version of a massive viewership database that will leave out the names and Internet addresses of its individual users.
"We have reached agreement with Viacom and the class-action group," Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes said. "They have agreed to let us anonymize YouTube user data," he said.
Viacom will use the information to build its $1 billion lawsuit against Google and its video-sharing site YouTube for allegations that the site built its business by infringing copyrights on Viacom shows, which include Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants" cartoon.
Judge Stanton had called for YouTube to hand over specific evidence of YouTube viewers, what videos they watched when, and users' computer addresses.
But privacy advocates from the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that the order "threatens to expose deeply private information" and violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 law passed after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental habits were revealed.
"We remain committed to protecting your privacy and we'll continue to fight for your right to share and broadcast your work on YouTube," the company said in a blog posting late Monday disclosing the agreement.
U.S. District Judge Stanton had dismissed privacy concerns as speculative when he authorized full access to the YouTube viewer logs. Viacom and other plaintiffs argued that they need the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips.
The YouTube database includes information on when each video gets played. Attached to each entry is each viewer's unique login ID and the Internet Protocol, or IP, address for that viewer's computer - identifiers that, while seemingly anonymous, can often be traced to specific individuals, or at least their employers or hometowns.
Under the new agreement, YouTube can swap the user logins and IP addresses with other, presumably anonymous signifiers; YouTube has a week to propose its method.
The companies are still expected to agree on how information regarding viewing records of Google’s own employees will be shared within the coming weeks. If a YouTube employee had viewed an episode of "The Daily Show," for instance, Viacom could argue that YouTube directly knew of copyright infringement.
The cases are expected to come to trial in 2009 or 2010.
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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