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YouTube Hands Over User Info To Fox
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Feb 14, 2007 03:34 PM
from the their-tube dept.
from the their-tube dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Tech Crunch has an article about YouTube identifying and handing over a user's information after a request from Fox. 'Three weeks after receiving a subpoena from the U.S. District Court in Northern California, YouTube has reportedly identified a user accused by 20th Century Fox Television of uploading episodes of the show 24 a week prior to their running on television. That user, named ECOTtotal, is also alleged to have uploaded 12 episodes of The Simpsons, some quite old. Apparently Google and YouTube were willing and able to identify the owner of the username ECOTtotal, according to a report on InternetNews.com.'"
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Willing and able (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Willing and able (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Willing and able (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but "Google Complies With The Law" doesn't make as good a headline...
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Re:Willing and able (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Willing and able (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Willing and able (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Willing and able (Score:4, Insightful)
In the case of Verizon, a big yes. In the case of YouTube, a big no.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the case of Verizon, a big yes. In the case of YouTube, a big no.
That's pretty subjective. The RIAA wanted to know who was downloading free music (i.e. stealing) while fox wanted to know who was leaking copyrighted videos (i.e. stealing) How is it any different? Because one is google who can do no wrong, while the other is the big bad RIAA?
Re:Willing and able (Score:5, Insightful)
In the case of Fox and YouTube, they were looking for the one person who uploaded very specific videos.
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Re:Willing and able (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Willing and able (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I hate the **AA's as much as the next guy, but on this one, fine with me, I hope they get the guy....
Willing to identify? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Willing to identify? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me that the issue at hand is more of a precursor to all the RIAA/MPAA/copyright gobbledygook. This someone was posting shows before they aired. It would be akin to publishing a company's trade secrets before they went public with them (i.e. leaking insider information that would influence the company's stock price).
Yes, the copyright stuff applies in whatever sense that it does, but if I were Fox, that would be taking a back seat to getting someone that was leaking "my" shows before they aired. Of course, once that someone were caught, "I" wouldn't be afraid to add copyright infringement to the list of charges.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if they could get it equated to a trade secret, that would be a nice thing to nail them for.
IANAL (obviously) but what laws are being broken here besides copyright infringement? I don
Re:Willing to identify? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about lost revenue due to reduced ad revenue, resulting from reduced viewership? If people know ahead of time what is going to happen in the next cliffhanger, they would be less apt to make arrangements to watch it. Draw a parallel to all the reality TV series for a moment. How interesting does the show series become when you know who is going to win in the last episode? Why do you think they sign the participants to "hush agreements" with stiff penalties? If people lose interest in a show, it becomes harder to demand higher ad revenue for placement during the show airtimes since the ratings would show that less people would be watching. (higher ratings = higher price commanded for ad airtime)
How about simple theft? The shows in question weren't broadcast or otherwise distributed to the general public in some fashion by Fox. If these shows were posted to YouTube after they aired, then copyright infringement would be pretty much all that Fox would have as legal ammunition. However, someone illegally removed (stole) these shows from one of the production facilities. What if I were to grab a copy of my company's quarterly results before they were published/publically released and spread them all over the internet? Obviously, there would be hell to pay. However, if I did the same thing after the company published its results, there really wouldn't be any harm that would come from it.
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Re:Willing to identify? (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay just STOP THERE. You do NOT know what you are talking about.
Media is often distributed to certain individuals before it is aired on TV or released in theaters, as the case may be. Fox has not publicly made the assertion that he stole the discs. He MAY have done this, but there is NO reason to believe that it is the case. And to claim that someone stole the discs from a Fox production facility is just ignorant until Fox tells us that is true. Otherwise, it's safer to assume that someone had them for a legitimate reason, and either allowed them to make a copy, or they are "them" and uploaded it themselves. Telecine releases of movies are often made in the theater where the movie will be shown and most screeners you can download are made from screening copies intentionally distributed for review.
Finally, someone who was in the production facility wouldn't necessarily need to actually take any discs anywhere. They might conceivably have copied them while onsite, one disc at a time (per visit?) with a computer on the site, or one they brought with them. This is almost more likely than stealing it, because stealing the masters or screening duplicates would be detected far more rapidly than copying them.
Yes, for dissemination of private information that does not belong to you. Guess what? It's still not called theft unless you physically remove them from the enterprise. You CAN steal a copy of data. You cannot steal the data without stealing all of the copies.
You could repost the figures, but copying and pasting the data in its entirety, including the presentation (formatting etc) would be a violation of copyright. The first part is because no one owns facts. The second part is because it's not your copyrighted information. Putting information on the web (or in a quarterly report) doesn't revoke its copyright.
All you are doing is speculating wildly. I realize this is a favorite slashbot pastime, but give it up already. You don't know shit about what happened, and neither do the rest of us.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, here in the real world, they probably don't have to prove anything, just make the assertion. I mean, it works for the RIAA and MPAA.
It's true that advertisers buy in advance. But all they have to do is show (or bullshit) that
how does this work? (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, I post a youtube video of the goatse guy in action.
I guess this dissapears? Haven't tried.
OK, I post simpsons video, and the copyright owner says, stop it, and the video stays up (or down??) and then the user who submitted gets turned over to be turned into the goatse guy?
My point, is why can come content just dissapear w/o a problem, but the other is then escalated into a problem?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is the copyright.
And of course the remedy is different: deleting vs penalties for the unauthorized copies.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:how does this work? (Score:4, Funny)
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Seriously though... (Score:4, Funny)
Why YouTube? (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupidity sometimes gets what it deserves...
Summary is very misleading... (Score:5, Insightful)
This really is theft (Score:3, Insightful)
However in this case it is truly theft, because the 24 video was never in the public to "copy". This was outright theft of what is basically confidential data.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your second paragraph shows that you do not understand your first.
It's not theft because nobody has ceased to possess anything. Whether what was being copied was supposed to be secret or not is irrelevant.
Re:This really is theft (Score:5, Informative)
Federal law does prohibit stealing of trade secrets, and it is classified as "theft". See for example the recent conviction of a Coca-Cola ex-secretary, who attempted to sell formula information to Pepsi-Cola. Copying the data and providing it to Pepsi did not cause Coke to lose possession of their formula, but it did potentially deprive them of a trade secret.
Before you respond, please read through and understand Title 18, United States Code, Section 1832(a)(1-3).
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How public is public? (Score:3, Interesting)
That may depend on whether or not you consider an unencrypted satellite uplink transmission "in the public". First-run syndicated programming is often like this. Hell, I saw the first episode of Viper on my cable, without commercials, well before its premiere and well before I'd even heard of the show. I've even seen rough storyboarded commercials
Got ta say..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
At the moment I publish the book, the situation changes. After that, if you make unauthorized copies, it is merely a copyright infringement, and only if the copies you make are not covered by fair use.
What's Google/YouTube doing with PID anyway? (Score:3, Interesting)
How/why would Google/YouTube have personally identifying information about a user anyway? (Or was the user stupid enough to not anonymize himself before trying this?)
I'll bet this turns out to be the cousin/friend/lover of a TV critic; they have access to advance copies that aren't supposed to get spread around. (Yes, it's happened before.) Something tells me the average Fox employee isn't bright enough to fire up his/her own browser.
Falsely Believing You are Anonymous... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Falsely Believing You are Anonymous... (Score:4, Informative)
A mistrial is simply a do over, to allow the defense to prepare based on the new material available to the prosecution. This prevents the highly dramatic, yet complete fantasy, occurrence of the prosecution discovering a key witness or piece of evidence and unveiling it during the final moments of the trial, catching the defense totally off-guard, leading to a swift conviction.
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Everyone is missing the obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Rich industrialists & charity work (Score:5, Insightful)
> and instead choose to spend it on 747's with waterbeds and other such items.
Sounds like they gave something back then, bet they made friends at Boeing at any rate and kept a few ordinary workers gainfully employed.
Getting involved in charities is something rich industrialists should NOT do until they retire from day to day operations, until then they are performing a far greater service to society by PRODUCING WEALTH. After they tire of working eighty hour weeks creating wealth and start feeling their mortality is the time to use their share of the wealth they created to leave monuments to themselves. And I'm good with that too, after all ya can't take it with you and leaving craploads of cash to your offspring is an almost sure fire way to destroy em.
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Re:It was only a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It was only a matter of time (Score:5, Informative)
A previous post [slashdot.org]
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Law enforcement looks for people living or working near the unsecured router and that either would have had access to the media prior to airtime, or have established relationships with people that would have had access. If the FBI gets involved, I guarantee they'll at least figure out who the guy is before they lose the laptop with all the details of the case.
Re:Google (Score:5, Insightful)
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that whoever uploaded this video early was breaking some law or another. How is it evil to turn him in, especially if your it states in your privacy policy that you will comply with law enforcement? If they had refused to hand over the information, we'd probably be getting people complaining about how Google is aiding and concealing criminals.
A sarcastic "Don't be evil" is not an insightful (much less thoughtful, intelligent, or unique) response to every single action Google takes for the rest of eternity.
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Re:Google (Score:4, Insightful)
But you don't really think that copyright infringement and mugging share a common moral space, do you? Death penalty for speeders while we're at it?
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Re:Google (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Google (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Choose your battles (Score:4, Insightful)
In the U.S., we have the right to the pursuit of happiness. This means we can chase our dreams, it does not mean we are entitled to obtaining our dreams. We do not have a right to CDs or software at whatever price we decide. If you can't afford it, do without it. I can't afford a new car. That doesn't mean I should go steal one because no one will sell me a new car at the price I wish to pay. It means I have to do without or change what I am willing to pay.
People who steal, be it software, CDs, cars, or personal possessions raise the cost of living for those of us who abide by the law. I have had bikes stolen out of my yard. Perhaps I should have chained them up, right? Well, that is an extra expense that I have to pay because other people choose not to obey the law or respect ownership rights. Perhaps I could not afford both a bike and a chain. Now, the criminal has a bike, and I have none because I can't afford to buy one and stealing someone else's would be illegal and morally wrong.
One of the shopkeepers I do business with was murdered in his store for a few hundred dollars in cash. His family had to invest in video cameras, pay his hospital and funeral expenses, and will have to pay for their share of the incarceration of the guy who was, thankfully, caught.
These are extreme examples, but they illustrate the point. People who choose to disobey the law, whether it be murder, or uploading copyrighted material, cause material damage to those of us who choose to obey the law.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not claiming that Google did anything wrong - I don't think they did - but I could make an argument for it.
The argument goes like this: Copyright is an evil institution that punishes creativity by making it possible for the major media conglomerates to operate. Thus vio
Re:OT (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:OT (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Did Cheney torture them for it, Frist? (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry, neihter reading Tom Clancy nor playing his games qualify as real, counter-terrorism ops.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If that's so:
- They still have to go after the actual posters. Publishing it widely is far more of an issue than merely getting hold of a copy and watching it or showing it to a few friends.
- Going after the poster ma