GOOGLE, YOUTUBE FORCED TO TURN OVER MILLIONS OF USER RECORDS TO VIACOM

I was startled to learn today that, in one of the most egregiously anti-privacy rulings handed down in years, some activist judge in New York ordered Google — which owns YouTube — to hand over personal details about more than 100 million users to media giant Viacom.

The search engine giant suffered the loss as part of a $1 billion pending lawsuit in which Viacom claimed YouTube users were uploading and watching copyrighted material from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and other Viacom-owned stations. In order to prove it though, Viacom claimed, they would need access to terrabytes worth of data from Google and YouTube. The judge sided with them.

Naturally, this decision has nearly everyone who isn’t a multi-billion dollar media mogul up in arms and it has Google and other Web companies fearing the worst.

PC Magazine Columnist Lance Ulanoff put it best today (below is just an excerpt, I suggest reading the whole thing):

There is a stunning level of spite in this move. Obviously, you’re [Viacom Owner Sumner Redstone] ignoring everything Google and YouTube have done thus far to atone for their “sins.”

YouTube has spent the last year and a half working on algorithms to catch and scrub copyrighted content from the service. As far as I can tell, a lot of it is gone (it rarely shows up on any of the “Most Watched” pages). Now, however, YouTube’s going further. Recently, I’ve heard stories of average users being knocked off the service for TOS violations. Apparently, YouTube’s automated system said they were posting copyrighted content. [...]

There is no end in sight. Viacom is doing this for no reason other than to seriously harm YouTube. The frenzied reaction by Google and YouTube to even the whiff of copyright infringement on the video site is the clearest indication that the damage is already done.

With those logs in hand, though, Mr. Redstone, Viacom has the will and means to do all sort of nasty things. It will learn what copyrighted videos still exist, whether or not people still watch them, and who the watchers are. A witch hunt could ensue. Maybe Viacom will go back to the judge and ask for a subpoena or two for a handful of egregious offenders. Perhaps you’ll go after people who subscribed to the Jon Stewart Daily Show video blogs and watched each and every one. I’m sure, Mr. Redstone, you would like to find a way to charge those people as criminals.

You’re doing all this in the service of content protection, right? No, not really. This is to protect Sumner Redstone’s almighty dollars. Good luck with that, jerk.

MSNBC notes that “increasingly… the courts are siding with rights owners and ruling that Web sites are responsible for illegal submissions.” This is very bad news not only for companies and users, but for the separation of powers and the freedoms protected by the Constitution.

For those of us who live and work on teh Internets, this is a double whammy. Not only do we have to look out for frivolous lawsuits by folks who disagree with something we say or do, but now we have to worry that Uncle Sam and/or the Six Sisters can come after any and all of our data whenever they please.

So I guess my excessive watching of the above video detailing how to pick a lock with a Coke can could get me in some trouble down the road. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take in order to defend our Constitutional rights (yeah, I’m still hyped-up from the 4th).

I think it’s safe to say that I’m with Ulanoff here when I wish nothing but the worst for Viacom in all their future pursuits. What we have on the Internet is a rare and almost sacred opportunity for complete freedom of thought and action. Sure there needs to be a measure of control to protect people from unnecessary harm, but this is too much in the wrong direction.