February 12, 2007 Google Turns Over User IDs By Nicholas Carlson Google's YouTube and a company called Live Digital will offer no refuge to users who uploaded pirated copies of Fox Television's "24" and "The Simpsons" onto their video platforms. In an e-mail to internetnews.com, a 20th Century Fox Television spokesperson said that Google and Live Digital complied with subpoenas issued by the U.S. District Court in Northern California and disclosed to Fox the identities of two individuals who illegally uploaded entire episodes of "24" prior to its broadcast and DVD release. According to copies of the subpoena applications, Fox found this season's first four episodes of "24" on LiveDigital and YouTube on Jan. 8, a full week before they were to air for the first time in the U.S. Fox said a YouTube user who goes by the handle "ECOTtotal" uploaded 12 episodes of the popular animated show "The Simpsons." The LiveDigital user's display name was "Jorge Romero." "We intend to use the information provided to pursue all available legal remedies against those who infringed our copyrights," 20th Century Fox Television Vice President of Media Relations Chris Alexander told internetnews.com. The U.S. District Court first instructed Google and Live Digital to produce identifying information in identical subpoenas, pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, issued Jan. 24 after L.A. law firm Loeb & Loeb filed them for Fox on Jan. 18. Since Google purchased YouTube for $1.56 billion last fall, the company has been besieged by similar complaints of copyright infringement. Last week, for example, media giant Viacom demanded YouTube take down 100,000 clips, including content from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks. Viacom said "it has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement" on content distribution. Some media companies have been more congenial. According to a Google spokesperson, of the big four music labels, only EMI is yet to sign a revenue-sharing deal with Google. And today, Digital Music Group announced it entered into an agreement with Google to make more than 4,000 hours of video content and approximately 40,000 music recordings available to the YouTube community. DMGI currently owns or controls the digital distribution rights to classic television episodes of "Gumby," "I Spy," "My Favorite Martian," "Peter Gunn" and more. Google Turns Over User IDs
The problem is that if they dont do it then there liable, copywrite IS copywrite and its googles ass on the line if they dont hand over user IDs. This isnt a case of google dobbing people in, its more a case of a breach of trust on the part of the user toward google, they dont expect there users to upload pirated stuff yet it gets done anyway. edit: if this were a case of google giving over the IPs of everybody who had /watched/ it though, it may be another thing altogether.
Agreed, but I still don't want the "good stuff" to vanish. It's sort of like killing the goose that lays the golden egg. It's not that I care about the Simpsons or 24, but music videos and clips with music to them may be pulled out of circulation.
the /good/ stuff I have seen on youtube are the OK Go vids posted by the band and stuff posted by amateurs of people doing hilarious goings on. There are proper pirate channels for pirate videos, dont you know ? Surely it isn't shocking people that piracy on the www. just doesn't go anymore!?
Youtube cannot survive as a legal, abovebord site. Hate to say it, but most of what makes it worthwhile is illegal and sadly Google has sounded the death knell for YT THe good news is that piracy on the web is like a hydra, cut off one head and two more will replace it.
I think youtube will be fine. There's still plenty of good non-copyright content on it. And yes, there will be many other sites (and there are) that host copyright content. They should have worked to get some sort of time restriction / commercials / disclaimers / etc instead of just having youtube pull it all and turn over the ID's... It was basically free advertising.
