Surprise! Your YouTube privacy isn't worth a cup of poo.

Ever watched a YouTube video clip that you wouldn't tell your mom about? Maybe you gave in to your curiosity and watched that highly disturbing clip about two girls and a heaping cup of feces?

Well, the good news is, your mom still probably won't know, but Viacom might.

From BBC News today:

Google must hand over the log holding details of every user who has watched any video on YouTube, a US court ruled.

The ruling comes as part of Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.

Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the ruling a "set-back to privacy rights".

The log, which will be handed to Viacom, contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video file details.

Why nuke the privacy of millions just to prove that, yes, copyrighted clips have been found on YouTube? Good question. My rant begins after the jump.

UPDATE: The litigants have backed off their demand for user IDs and IP addresses.

I can't say I blame Viacom, parent of MTV and Paramount Pictures, for trying to stop infringement of its copyright on YouTube. But the video-sharing site has already done quite a bit to fix the problem since this lawsuit began, so it's not like this was a vital step to up the ante.

In fact, what's the point of doing this at all? Are viewers to blame for watching short clips of copyrighted material? Are we supposed to demand proof of copyright ownership before clicking on a link?

This isn't like the ongoing battle of file sharing on services like BitTorrent and Lime Wire. Only a small minority of Internet users are savvy enough to download a clip they've watched on YouTube, a site that zealously safeguards the hosted nature of its videos.

In fact, the basis of this privacy disaster is that Viacom wants to show how popular copyrighted material is on YouTube. Why wouldn't a number of viewers be sufficient? Why would Viacom need more than that?

The TechCrunch blog puts the answer succinctly:

(Judge Louis L. Stanton) clearly doesn’t understand that far more data is being transferred than is necessary to comply with Viacom’s core stated concern, which is to understand the popularity of copyright infringing v. non-infringing material. Viacom has asked for far more data than that, and there’s only one use for that data: to sue individual users (or shake them down via the threat of lawsuit, which has been perfected by the RIAA) who have watched a few music videos or television shows on YouTube.

All we can do now is wait, hope and cover our butts. So let me say this: As God as my witness, I'll never watch a 3-minute clip of "Pimp My Ride" again. Or maybe even MTV, for that matter.

Comments

[Andy Dunbar]

Well my mom did find out about a stunt I did for work that just so happened to make fun of my mom! Check it out the Dunbar Song here on YouTube

[Ben Kunz]

Nice post. I think perhaps both sides protest too much.

1. Viacom wins the battle but loses the war. Eventually information flows freely like water, and looking at moving images without paying will become status quo, sort of like the ability to take photos of celebrities outside with a clean line of sight. Annoying, perhaps, but a basic right of vision.

2. Consumers, get ready, cause you have NO privacy with anything that touches the net.

If content producers really want to protect their images, they'll have to marry them to devices (like iPods) or experiences (like the new leather-seated cinemas) that encourage people to come in through their portals.

Information wants to be free, but if you give me really good popcorn, I may pay the $10 admission.

[Matt Sayar]

While I'm naturally averse to the sharing of my "private" information (what's private on the 'net?), you still gotta ask yourself, "What's on YouTube that I'd be embarrassed to say I watched?" 2G1C isn't even available on YouTube, and the rest of the videos are mostly "clean".

The most embarrassing thing I can think of that I've seen is Charlie the Unicorn, and I don't care who knows it. Except maybe my future employer.