Should Viacom be privy to the fact that you've watched “Cat Playing Piano" 57 times on YouTube since March?
Yes, according to the U.S. District Court for Southern New York. Judge Louis Stanton on Wednesday ruled that Google must provide Viacom with YouTube user histories in Viacom's ongoing $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against the video Web site.
Google must hand over all the information contained in its logging database, including the login ID of the users who have watched videos, the time they started to watch the video, users' IP address, and the video identifier.
Viacom claims that it must have access to the entire database in order to see whether users are watching infringing videos more than they are watching non-infringing content. If they are watching more videos with copyrighted data that might prove that Google had an incentive to keep them live on YouTube and did not actively work to remove them, according to Viacom.
Yes, according to the U.S. District Court for Southern New York. Judge Louis Stanton on Wednesday ruled that Google must provide Viacom with YouTube user histories in Viacom's ongoing $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against the video Web site.
Google must hand over all the information contained in its logging database, including the login ID of the users who have watched videos, the time they started to watch the video, users' IP address, and the video identifier.
Viacom claims that it must have access to the entire database in order to see whether users are watching infringing videos more than they are watching non-infringing content. If they are watching more videos with copyrighted data that might prove that Google had an incentive to keep them live on YouTube and did not actively work to remove them, according to Viacom.
