YouTube Source Code Safe, But Your Viewing Records Aren't*

Dan Frommer | July 3, 2008 11:10 AM

/images/skateboard-dog.jpg Mixed news for YouTube in its billion-dollar copyright infringement suit with Viacom: Google (GOOG) will not have to turn over YouTube's source code to Viacom, U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton ruled. But Stanton granted Viacom's (VIAB) request for records of every video ever watched by YouTube viewers, including their login name and and IP address, CNET reports.

At TechCrunch, Michael Arrington argues that Stanton is a "moron" who got everything backwards:

I can understand why Judge Stanton, who graduated from law school in 1955, may be completely and utterly clueless when it comes to online videos [sic] services. But perhaps one of his bright young clerks or interns could have told him that (1) handing over user names and a list of videos they’ve watched to a highly litigious copyright holder is extremely likely to result in lawsuits against those users that have watched copyrighted content on YouTube, and (2) YouTube’s source code is about as valuable as the hard drive it would be delivered on, since the core Flash technology is owned by Adobe and there are countless YouTube clones out there, most of which offer higher quality video.

We agree with Arrington's basic point -- that it's a bad idea for YouTube's user data to be released -- to Viacom or to anyone. (Though we're not sure Viacom is "extremely likely" to sue its fans.) But we think he is way off with his comments about Google's intellectual property. Viacom wasn't just looking for the HTML source of YouTube's pages, or Adobe (ADBE) Flash details, but much more proprietary code that "controls the YouTube.com search function and Google.com's Internet search tool," according to the WSJ. That's worth a lot more than a hard drive.

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23 Comments

noblow said:

Jul. 03, 9:37 AM

So THIS is your coverage of one of the hottest topic today? I'm impressed - not. TechCrunch has much better coverage (even if a bit biased).

Why are you still hanging in on the MSFT-YHOO thing? I'm tired of this by now, and I hope MSFT will end the speculation anytime soon.

Dan Frommer (URL) said:

Jul. 03, 11:16 AM

Hey noblow. First, thanks for the comment. Wanted to get the YouTube news up as early as I could and add a little more later, which I just did. Please feel free to add constructive commentary in the future. We encourage that.

Your second point is silly. A lot of shareholders lost a lot of money because of Yahoo's moves. Many people care. I'm sorry if you don't.

MT said:

Jul. 03, 11:46 AM

Is this report by CNET accurate? I've only watched YouTube videos occasionally and I've never had to login to the site. Could it be that the ruling is actually that Stanton granted Viacom's request for records of every video ever *posted* (not *watched*) by YouTube viewers, including their login name and and IP address?

Dan Frommer (URL) said:

Jul. 03, 11:53 AM

MT, I haven't looked at the documents, but every report I've seen has involved viewing records, not posting.

noblow said:

Jul. 03, 1:54 PM

Dan - sorry for sounding a bit negative, but the first story was indeed not up to your usual standards. Now things look better.

OK, some constructive opinion, to foster the discussion.

I am all for Viacom to win this case, and the rules given out by the judge indicate that Viacom are probably going to win big time. First, with this data they can (and will) prove that they had discovered just the tip of the iceberg when they sent 150,000 takedown notices. The REAL number of infringements will probably be twice as much, if not more. And the number of views will prove that copyright protected content played a BIG role in the popularity of the service. Do a Youtube search on "MTV" today. Oooops.

Then add the handover of all removed videos, and Viacom will be able to prove that Youtube takes down videos on their own (e.g. adult content) or other stuff (e.g. videos that are otherwise forbidden in certain territories). Should Viacom be able to prove that, Youtube is not protected by the DMCA. And the lights will go out for Youtube.

They will probably go out anyway, as the service will be so unattractive that noone will want to post to Youtube any more.

Other services, like Scribd or Flickr, should really watch their steps as they too might fall down faster than they can yell "heeeeelp".

Finally, I think that Google needs to be shown some limits as to what can be done with other people's content. Until now they just grabbed any bit they could get hold of (on their quest to organize the world information). Which is not good when you start violating IP law.

foobar said:

Jul. 03, 4:03 PM

I disagree with your point that YouTubes source code is extremely valuable... I don't think any of the points you mention constitute value. Furthermore as can be seen by the thousands of youtube clones the technology to implement youtube isn't really that amazing.

Dan Frommer (URL) said:

Jul. 03, 4:09 PM

foobar, Google's search code isn't valuable?

clickbot said:

Jul. 04, 3:14 AM

This is a huge story, and I can't believe it's not being talked about more.

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