Ever clicked on a YouTube vid? Viacom now has all your info.

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In the ongoing copyright battle between Viacom and Google, a judge ordered Google's subsidiary YouTube to hand over an enormous trove of data identifying who watched what and when on the video-sharing site.
Viacom's lawyers argued that they needed this data to prove that "infringing" videos -- e.g., clips of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" -- were more popular than non-infringing user-generated videos. Presumably, if it proves this, Viacom might prevail in its argument that YouTube's bread-and-butter was illegal videos, and thus owes some of its success -- and billions of dollars -- to media companies.
The database in question is astonishingly broad: Viacom asked for 12 terabytes of logs (approximately 12,000 GB) that detail each instance in which someone pressed Play on a YouTube video, plus the YouTube username of the viewer who watched it, the date and time at which the user pressed Play, and the IP address of the viewer's computer. The database covers videos seen both on YouTube as well as those embedded on other pages: If you've never visited YouTube but have clicked on a YouTube video from your daily newspaper's Web site, you're in the database.
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http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/07/03/youtube_privacy/index.html
 
Truth be told I never watched the Daily Show, Colbert Report or anything else like that. No one's viewing history should be any of Viacom's business. I can see uploading, but viewing?

That being said, the fact that Youtube even has that much data is disturbing.
 
Low-quality content aside, it would be a shame if a creative outlet like YouTube were shut down due to corporate greed.
 
[quote name='chasemurata']Low-quality content aside, it would be a shame if a creative outlet like YouTube were shut down due to corporate greed.[/quote]

You'd be a fool to think nothing else would spring up as the new king. There are tons of sites out there just like YouTube, and many have better video quality as well.

As a side note, why couldn't they just add up the total views for each? Either way, how do they expect to get through 12 TB of statistics? Its unfathomable! Unless bYouTube already labeled each video as unique, or copy right infringing, but not all deleted videos are from copy right infringments...?
 
[quote name='VioletArrows']Next Rick Astley will be asking for back royalties for the past 2 years.[/quote]

Like how U.S. government "owes" royalties to David Gray for using his "Babylon" song to torture "War on Terror" prisoners(http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/07/does-us-governm.html)? :rofl:

As for Viacom, I can see they going after people that uploaded videos. But there's nothing they can do about people that video it, since they're not the one that put it on youtube.

As for copyrighted stuff getting more views, they're probably right. Don't know about anyone else, but it's usually stuff that I missed on tv that I watch on youtube and not some idiot filming himself smacking into a tree.
 
[quote name='becuzimbrown']I don't break the law, so I don't have to worry about this :cool:[/quote]

It's not a matter of breaking the law. They are looking into everything people have viewed. That is an incredible invasion of privacy whether you have broken the law or not.

[quote name='help1']You'd be a fool to think nothing else would spring up as the new king. There are tons of sites out there just like YouTube, and many have better video quality as well.

As a side note, why couldn't they just add up the total views for each? Either way, how do they expect to get through 12 TB of statistics? Its unfathomable! Unless bYouTube already labeled each video as unique, or copy right infringing, but not all deleted videos are from copy right infringments...?[/quote]

There's a few others I like as much as Youtube, but Youtube has that brand name appeal to noobs and average people. It's kind of like who Xerox became a verb for every copy machine out there, or Scotch for everykind of transparent tape.
 
[quote name='help1']You'd be a fool to think nothing else would spring up as the new king. There are tons of sites out there just like YouTube, and many have better video quality as well.

As a side note, why couldn't they just add up the total views for each? Either way, how do they expect to get through 12 TB of statistics? Its unfathomable! Unless bYouTube already labeled each video as unique, or copy right infringing, but not all deleted videos are from copy right infringments...?[/quote]

Well, I didn't say it was the only creative outlet on the Internet. :hot:
 
[quote name='chasemurata']Well, I didn't say it was the only creative outlet on the Internet. :hot:[/quote]

I wasn't really directly saying that you did, I was just addressing people who did.

As a matter of fact, I have a high regard for you, and think you are probably a very intelligent guy.
 
[quote name='chasemurata']Low-quality content aside, it would be a shame if a creative outlet like YouTube were shut down due to corporate greed.[/quote]

I bet youtube was started due to greed. I bet those guys knew they could make a ton of money with the idea, and they also knew that they could make a ton of money as a showcase for copyrighted material. You have to admit that youtube got tons of views because of copyrighted material. It's not greedy for a company to want someone to buy the DVDs instead of watching all of the episodes on youtube. It's a business.
 
[quote name='bobthecat23']its basicly free advertising for the companys haveing the videos on youtube lol[/quote]

No.
 
[quote name='GTzerO']I bet youtube was started due to greed. I bet those guys knew they could make a ton of money with the idea, and they also knew that they could make a ton of money as a showcase for copyrighted material. You have to admit that youtube got tons of views because of copyrighted material. It's not greedy for a company to want someone to buy the DVDs instead of watching all of the episodes on youtube. It's a business.[/quote]

Everyone can make a ton of money.

People tune to youtube to watch clip - try and find a full episode, I'll be surprised if you can come up with more then a handful of full episodes for popular on-air shows.

Everytime I turn on TNT they have ads showcasing clips from that mediocre "Closer" show. Ads that TNT gets no revenue from. Well - youtube is willing to advertise clips from that show for free. I'm sure someone would check out those clips, like the show, and check it out on TNT replete with ads.

So what does Viacom do? Sue youtube into oblivion. SMART PLAN

Well, they did dupe a judge into giving them access to free user information from youtube which they can use for marketing, lawsuits, and blackmail so in all maybe the hit to their reputation was worth it - not belonging to a unscrupulous team of corporate lawyers, who is a freedom-loving peon like me to say?
 
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[quote name='GTzerO']I bet youtube was started due to greed. I bet those guys knew they could make a ton of money with the idea, and they also knew that they could make a ton of money as a showcase for copyrighted material. You have to admit that youtube got tons of views because of copyrighted material. It's not greedy for a company to want someone to buy the DVDs instead of watching all of the episodes on youtube. It's a business.[/quote]


unless there's some secret naming of copyrighted vids, I thought youtube took down episodes of anything almost instantly.


edit: nevermind.
 
[quote name='camoor']Everyone can make a ton of money.

People tune to youtube to watch clip - try and find a full episode, I'll be surprised if you can come up with more then a handful of full episodes for popular on-air shows.

[/quote]

I thought the lawsuit was referring to this retrospectively. Before youtube started to crack down on this type of thing, it was easy for you to find full episodes of popular on air shows.

[quote name='camoor']

Well, they did dupe a judge into giving them access to free user information from youtube which they can use for marketing, lawsuits, and blackmail so in all maybe the hit to their reputation was worth it - not belonging to a unscrupulous team of corporate lawyers, who is a freedom-loving peon like me to say?[/quote]

Hey, I didn't say I agreed with their methods. I just understand where they're coming from.
 
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According to the fine people at cnet, they've decided that ip addresses won't be sent over with the viewing data. Instead, they'll probably end up assigning random ids to ip addresses. Essentially, they'll be able to know that person A watched these copyright materials, but should have no way of figuring out that person A had such and such ip address at such and such time. I say should, because with enough reverse engineering, viacom could possibly figure out how the ids were assigned. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as true random.
 
If it's just those videos I don't care, but if it's all of them I'd be pissed and would sue! Oh wait I can't sue anymore, Obama and McCain voted against the 4th Amendment, oh well, all hail Soviet America.
 
[quote name='CmptrVir']According to the fine people at cnet, they've decided that ip addresses won't be sent over with the viewing data. Instead, they'll probably end up assigning random ids to ip addresses. Essentially, they'll be able to know that person A watched these copyright materials, but should have no way of figuring out that person A had such and such ip address at such and such time. I say should, because with enough reverse engineering, viacom could possibly figure out how the ids were assigned. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as true random.[/quote]



there have got to be laws against tampering with discovery materials like that. or at least a contract written up by google's lawyers forcing viacom to promise not to do that. No way they'd go through that much trouble to protect people only to leave a back door like that open.
 
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