YouTube Hands Over User Info To Fox

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.'"

Re:Willing and able

[paranode]

Not only would they, they pretty much have to if they don't want law enforcement just coming in and confiscating all of their hardware.

Re:It was only a matter of time

[roger6106]

A previous post [slashdot.org]

The full DVD of the first four episodes was ALL OVER Usenet on the 7th.

Thousands of people DLed that, and one guy encoded it for submission to YouTube.

No insider job here.

Re:Got ta say.....

[drinkypoo]

This is an obvious case of thieft

Your brain apparently revolted against the nonsense you were spewing and caused you to misspell the offending word.

Copyright infringement is NOT THEFT. It is copyright infringement. We have a name for it for a reason, and that reason is to distinguish it from theft, in which you deprive another of the thing which you are taking. When you make a copy of something you are NOT taking it. You are copying it. Note too that copying and taking are not the same thing, which is why we have different words for them.

Every time you equate copyright infringement to theft, a RIAA or MPAA lawyer gets his horns, tail and pitchfork.

Re:This really is theft

[SydShamino]

No, in this case you are wrong. Until the information has been made public, it could be claimed (and a jury would likely agree) that the material is a Fox trade secret. It contains plot twists and other elements that are confidential until their air date, so that their impact has not been diluted by pre-emptive copies. Imagine if a writer for a soap opera saw a plot twist on a pre-release version of 24, then wrote that same twist into his or her soap to air before the 24 air date.

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).

Re:How public is public?

[kaen]

As others have pointed out, rental stores also got them early and some Blockbuster employees were permitted to rent them before they were made available to customers

Actually, the Blockbuster here encouraged employees to borrow (not rent) new movies before their release so they could be informed when customers asked questions about the movies.

Re:Why not go after the REAL source.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The episodes were probably rips of the season premiere DVD that leaked before it aired (and were probably already on bit torrent and the newsgroups long before they were uploaded to YouTube). Why isn't FOX trying to go after the original hole on their end with this much effort?

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 may be part of chasing down the leak.

Re:Willing and able

[OnlineAlias]

And I disagree with that. RIAA went after people who were sharing files, for which there can be legitimate and not necessarily infringing use, using questionable legal tactics. Fox is going after someone in the inside who most definitely didn't have the right to distribute and who is causing serious damage, using perfectly legitimate legal means.

I hate the **AA's as much as the next guy, but on this one, fine with me, I hope they get the guy....

Re:Falsely Believing You are Anonymous...

[MrWa]

Your summary of the stories seems to imply that the anonymous posting caused the mistrial, which is not quite accurate. The discovery of a new witness for the prosecution during the trial itself was the reason for the mistrial - the anonymous posting was just the means by which this witness was discovered. It would make as much sense as blaming coffee shops for the mistrial if the witness was found drinking a latte that morning.

Mistrials in cases where a new witness surfaces late in the trial process are not unusual, District Judge Robert Fairchild said, especially when the testimony presented would affect the case considerably.

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.

Re:OT

[RaceCarDriver]

"~" is the User's "home"dir. Saying "~/.." is home is wrong because that would only work for users whose homedir is in /home/, and even then it would be more like a neighborhood, not a "home". FYI: Not all user accounts are in /home/WHATEVER! You must be new to Linux/Unix...

Someone already answered this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone leaked the episodes on usenet prior to this incident. The youtube guy wasn't an insider.

Re:OT

[paulthomas]

Another comment addresses why this is even being discussed. You're right that 127.0.0.1 is localhost. You're wrong about it being called the "http callback interface." Its the "loopback interface" and has little to do with http, other than the fact that you can reach locally run http services over it.

Only goes to show .....

[ajs318]

Never, ever give out your real details to anyone who doesn't need to know them.

Always use made-up names, addresses and other personal details when registering for an account with any on-line service -- and don't use the same details twice. If you're looking for an address, there's at least one Catholic church in almost every city in the world.

Remember: Nobody needs to know where you live unless they want to visit you. Nobody needs to know your e-mail address unless they want to send you e-mail. Nobody needs to know when you were born unless they want to send you a birthday card. Nobody needs to know how much you earn unless they are going to lend you money and want to know how soon you can pay it back. Nobody needs to know what is between your legs unless they want to shag you. Nobody needs to know if you are a vegetarian unless they are going to invite you for dinner. In fact, to give you service down a wire, the only thing anyone needs to know is your IP address; and if they managed to send you the form requesting your valuable data, they already know that.