In the Viacom v. Google court case of YouTube copyright infringement, Viacom just got one of its major requests: usernames, IP addresses, and which videos have been uploaded and watched by each user.
Viacom wants to show that copyright infringing material is more popular on YouTube than original material. To that end, the judge in the case has ruled that Google shall turn over their entire user database to Viacom. This info is to be turned over directly to Viacom (not to the court) on four 1TB HDDs. The drives shall also contain every video that Google has ever removed from YouTube.
Viacom’s lawyers posit that if they can show that users are watching and uploading more infringing material than they are original material, then Google can be held responsible for the infringement. Google argues that it has complied with every request to remove infringing material, and that it cannot be held responsible for the actions of every user in an open content sharing system like their popular video browsing site.
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