[Mrluvaluva]

A major court ruling in the US has ordered Google to hand over details of all YouTube users to media company Viacom.

Viacom, which owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, had brought a lawsuit against the video-sharing website, claiming that the site was guilty of copyright infringement.

The case, initiated in March 2007, centres on a claim by Viacom that their copyrighted videos had been viewed over 1.5 billion times on the site.

Thousands, possibly millions of videos featuring the music of record label-signed bands have been uploaded to the site.

YouTube has now been ordered to supply Viacom with details of all its users and their viewing habits.

This will include usernames, IP addresses and video clip details, effectively allowing Viacom to track all those who have viewed the copyrighted videos.

The case is expected to set a precedent for future court cases concerning YouTube, and possibly all those involving intellectual copyright issues.

With many music videos appearing on YouTube without permission from copyright holders, the ruling could have a significant impact on music fans.

The news follows Virgin Media's announcement that it recently sent letters to 800 broadband subscribers suspected to have downloaded music illegally.


Source

[Mark]

Read about this earlier on today. A comment that made me laugh was that Google should hand over all the logs in print outs, instead of in digital format

It's a rediculous case, that will probably end up with Google just paying Viacom a huge out of court settlement, heck they can afford it.

[Mrluvaluva]

That would take a hell of a lot of paper.

[CassetteFinger]

So everyone that has the internet basically is gonna get in trouble for watching illegal copyright video's on youtube? Or downloading them? O i dont understand. Im feeling to be rid of the net all together.

[Mrluvaluva]

Originally posted by CassetteFinger
So everyone that has the internet basically is going to get in trouble for watching illegal copyright video's on youtube? Or downloading them? O i dont understand. Im feeling to be rid of the net all together.

See you in court Tommy.

[Mrluvaluva]

[Scarlett.]

Whats private anymore?
FFS

[Mrluvaluva]

Nothing it seems. Is Youtube the new Napster?

[Scarlett.]

Lol whats napster?

[Sticks]

It seems viewing an illegally placed clip is the same as downloading an illegal file.

The performing rights people play hardball, even prosecuting children downloading there favourite track.

£1500 per track is the going rate.

[Hugo]

I'm scared

[Tom]

You shouldn't be. Do you honestly think they're going to look through billions of logs? Paired with the fact that peoples IP's change so it will be impossible to tell who is who. Just delete your details from your account and you'll be fine.

[Sticks]

Statement from YouTube