As litigation continues in Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement suit against Google, a judge has ordered (PDF) Google most turn over the usage histories of every YouTube user to Viacom. The usage logs contain each YouTube user’s login ID, the IP address used to connect to YouTube, as well as a video identifier and a start time.
The court did not order the Google disclose to Viacom its search code, schemas, and other intellectual property, noting that such disclosure—even under a non-disclosure agreement—would cause Google harm since the information carries significant commercial value. The court also ruled Viacom doesn’t get data on privacy videos hosted on YouTube—that is, videos that can only be seen by a user specifically authorized to view it.
