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July 7, 2008
UPDATED: Viacom: YouTube Data for Use Against Google Only
This item is from last Thursday, but it’s worth noting because a scan of the blogospheric headlines on the broader story show a lot of people think Viacom wants YouTube logs so it can launch an RIAA-style assault on people who posted infringing material:
“Mr. Fricklas [Viacom’s general counsel] said Viacom would not have direct access to the data, and that its use would be strictly limited by the court order. Viacom would not, for example, chase down users who had illegally posted clips from ‘The Colbert Report.’
“‘The information that is produced by Google is going to be limited to outside advisers who can use it solely for the purpose of enforcing our rights against YouTube and Google,’ Mr. Fricklas said.”
(Link)
That link is via EFF’s Kurt Opsahl, who had an excerpt from the Times’ report that indicated it once included this immediately after the last sentence of the excerpt above:
“‘I can unequivocally state that we will not use any of this information to enforce rights against end users.’”
I assume it was dropped because an editor somewhere decided it didn’t add anything that hadn’t already been said. If I’d been editing it, I would have preferred the strong quote over the cute paraphrase at the end of the first graf above. I wrote the Times reporter, we’ll see if he responds.
Update: Miguel Heft, the NYT reporter, did respond. He said the quote was “dropped for space reasons” as the story was being prepared for the print edition of the paper, since it repeated the information in the paraphrase.
Previously
Posted by mhall at 12:50 PM | Add Comment
This is a complete invasion of privacy on the part of Viacom and our user information doesn’t have any relevance to their billion dollar lawsuit against Google. Google should be able to anatomize the user information before handing over 12 terabytes of personal information so my privacy and the privacy of millions like me are protected. I have a campaign that will force Viacom to allow Google/YouTube to protect us or 100,000 will boycott Viacom and all its subsidiaries: https://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/stop-viacom-from-invading-our-you-tube-privacy