YouTube shared user data with studio lawyers

[method77]

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- It's no secret that millions of Internet users every day watch copyright-infringing video clips on YouTube, the upstart Web site that Google Inc. has agreed to acquire for $1.65 billion.

What's less known is that YouTube has been watching the watchers.

YouTube's actions in response to a subpoena it received in May show that it has been keeping tabs on users who post copyrighted material to its site -- and in one case shared the name of a user with lawyers from a Hollywood film studio.

On May 24, lawyers for Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures convinced a federal judge in San Francisco to issue a subpoena requiring YouTube to turn over details about a user who uploaded dialog from the movie studio's "Twin Towers," according to a copy of the document.

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[DudeAsInCool]

Not good...

[KiwiCoromandel]

ouch!....nasty!.....the thing that interests me is this....was google in possession of this information when they agreed to purchase youtube?... :)

[method77]

of course they were

[KiwiCoromandel]

YOUTUBE to make life even busier for GOOGLE lawyers.....

Google attracts millions of web users every day. And, increasingly, it's attracting plenty of lawyers, too.

As Google has grown into the world's most popular search engine and, arguably, the most powerful internet company, it has become entangled in scores of lawsuits touching on a wide range of legal questions, including copyright violation, trademark infringement and its method of ranking websites.

Any company that is large and successful is going to attract lawsuits, and Google's deep pockets make it a big target. But as it rushes to create innovative services, Google sometimes operates in a way that almost seems to invite legal scrutiny.

A group of authors and publishers is challenging the company's right to scan books that are still under copyright. A small website in California is suing Google because it was removed from the company's search results. And European news agencies have sued over the use of their headlines and photos in Google News.

In these cases and others, potential legal problems seem to give the company little pause before it plunges into new ventures.

"I think Google is wanting to push the boundaries," said Jonathan Zittrain, professor of internet governance and regulation at Oxford University.

"The internet ethos of the '90s, the expansionist ethos, was, 'Just do it, make it cool, make it great and we'll cut the rough edges off later'," Zittrain said. "They're really trying to preserve a culture that says, 'Just do it, and consult with the lawyers as you go so you don't do anything flagrantly ill-advised'."

Now, with its planned $1.65 billion acquisition of the video site YouTube, which contains not just homemade videos but also copyrighted clips that users upload without permission, some observers say Google is exposing itself to a new spate of lawsuits.

Along with YouTube's 34 million viewers, Google will inherit a lawsuit filed last summer against the company. Robert Tur, who owns a video from the 1992 riots in Los Angeles that shows a trucker being beaten by rioters, is suing YouTube, accusing it of copyright infringement.

"Clearly, we investigated that whole issue," said David Drummond, Google's general counsel and senior vice-president of corporate development. Mr Drummond pointed to the "safe harbour" provision of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A number of courts have held that under this provision, websites are not liable for copyrighted content posted by users, as long as they promptly remove it when it is pointed out to them.

"We rely on the same safe harbour that YouTube relies on, so we're fairly familiar with the issues," Mr Drummond said. "If you look at it, it's somewhat illustrative of the kinds of lawsuits we face."

Google has been known to settle, but for the most part it aggressively fights litigation - so far with a good deal of success. In the past few years, the company has spent millions in legal fees and hired a small army of bright young lawyers, many of them experts in the field of intellectual property.

Many of the plaintiffs are asking for damages, but money is not always the issue. There are several cases, focusing on questions of intellectual property and trademark protection, that challenge Google's whole way of doing business. These plaintiffs are suing Google to protect their well-established practices; their interest is not so much in remuneration as it is in getting Google to change its approach.

Cases addressing trademark protection in Google's advertising system could hurt its bottom line, as the company's revenue comes mainly from advertising sales, said Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University.

source:The New York Times

image:www.compareblogs.com:YOUTUBE and GOOGLE....happy together?