Internet Law
Google Ordered to Turn Over User Names of YouTube Viewers
Posted Jul 3, 2008, 08:46 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A federal judge in New York has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom records of customers’ user names and IP addresses, along with records of videos they watched on YouTube.
U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton of Manhattan ruled in a lawsuit filed by Viacom, which seeks to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, Wired reports. Viacom’s suit seeks more than $1 billion in damages against Google for allowing its users to upload copyrighted material.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation contends the order violates the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, passed after the disclosure of videos rented by failed U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.