The video-sharing site recently purchased by Google for $1.65B in stock has been keeping tabs on users' personal data, and sharing some of that identifying info without users' awareness. Responding to a subpoena served in May by Viacom subsidiary Paramount Pictures, YouTube handed over data on at least one user to the movie studio's lawyers. Snip:
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.
YouTube promptly handed over the data to Paramount, which on June 16 sued the creator of the 12-minute clip, New York City-based filmmaker Chris Moukarbel, for copyright infringement, in federal court in Washington.
That YouTube chose to turn over the data, rather than simply remove the offending video from its site — as it did Friday when it agreed to take down 30,000 videos at the request of a group of Japanese media companies — came as a surprise to copyright experts.
"YouTube seems to have given up too easily," said Laurence P. Colton, an intellectual-property lawyer at the firm of Powell & Goldstein LLP in Atlanta.
Its prompt legal capitulation suggests that YouTube users who post copyrighted material should not expect the company to protect them from media-business lawsuits[.]
Link to story. The company's privacy policy provides some insight (see "When YouTube Discloses Information"), and should render today's news a non-surprise. As with any web service, caveat uploader. (Thanks, Stacy)
Update: Fred Von Lohmann from the EFF says,
The problem here is with the DMCA, not with YouTube's privacy practices. In that law, Congress gave copyright owners the power to get subpoenas that force online hosting service providers (like YouTube) to identify users who are accused of infringement. (In the RIAA v. Verizon case, Verizon successfully argued that these subpoenas can't be used against traditional "conduit" ISPs that simply carry bits for users, but the law clearly authorizes these subpoenas against hosting providers like YouTube.)
Furthermore, the underlying dispute referenced in the MarketWatch story, involving a 12-minute video short based on the script for Oliver Stone's film, World Trade Center, was apparently settled some time ago.
So, all in all, a pretty poor piece of reporting by Market Watch, I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of issues here — just not the ones MarketWatch is going on about.
Reader comment: Brian Carnell says,
Reading the story about Chris Moukarbel, who YouTube narked out to Paramount, I was curious what "uploaded dialogue" from another film meant.
Here is a WaPo story from June. What Moukarbel did was take a leaked early script of "Twin Towers" and make a version of a segment of it:
"But as a 28-year-old filmmaker, Moukarbel wanted to do more than simply watch Stone's "World Trade Center." He decided to create his own version — using a bootleg copy of the screenplay and Yale University student actors — and offer it free on the Internet.
Although his film is only 12 minutes long and doesn't have a cast to rival Nicolas Cage and Maria Bello, it has brought the power of Hollywood down on him."
So someone makes a fan film before the movie is released, and Paramount has a fit? They actually claim in the WaPo story that people would have confused Moukarbel's no-budget film with Oliver Stone's $40 million version. *Gag*
Gareth says,
This post is timely: Chris Moukarbel has some other work in a show, opening this Thursday (the 26th) at Marianne Boesky Gallery. 509 west 24th, NYC.
