YouTube has to fork over viewer records to plaintiff Viacom as a result of the recent law suit regarding copyright issues. I understand Viacom’s desire for that, but I disagree with the ruling.
The cool thing is that Google – YouTube’s parent company – has successfully negotiated with Viacom to scrub and data that can be used to identify users. Names and IP addresses are gone.
So, it’s likely, regarding privacy, the problem’s over in this particular case.
But there are two buts.Viacom won the law suit. This means they are still going after YouTube by claiming they knew that, by allowing people to upload videos – some of which were copyrighted – were violating copyright laws. So the viability of YouTube is still up in the air. It will survive, but it could be stymied, along with our experiences using it.
But perhaps more importantly, it’s the court’s ruling that has me concerned. It’s great that Viacom didn’t want to get identifiable information on YouTube viewers, but the next company may feel differently. The next company may want to go after some people. Or, more problematically, all that data may be leaked. By mistake. By a hacker. Or secretly by a company that wants to screw YouTube (or whatever company is being targeted).
We can argue all we want how it’s dumb for Viacom to go after YouTube. After all, some of us want to see that old music video. Or that comedy skit.
But Viacom doesn’t care, for now. They want control over their copyrighted property. You can bet they’ll be monetizing it later.
