I love this Invasion of privacy bull. Where is the privacy when you post on the net. If you post on youtube it has become public and if it is copywrited or illeagal material you should pay the price.

by JohnMc, Lawndale, on Jul 07, 2008 09:48 PM, Report abuse

To the guy that said that invasion of privacy is bull, how would you like every forum you go to, every item you have searched for on the internet and every image you have downloaded to be plastered all over the net. How would you like big brother to say' hey, all of your information is public since you put it out there and now we want it". Wouldn't be concerned would you? Wouldn't care if your address, phone number and internet habits were all available to anyone who wanted them? Yeah, right!

by Carmen, Laguna Beach, on Jul 07, 2008 10:00 PM, Report abuse

Wiretapping and Youtube are not the same thing. Wiretapping is listening in on a private conversation, which you (the authorities) believe has information about illegal activities. Youtube has anonymous users taking copyrighted material and placing it in a 'public' area for all to view for free (except that google does get $$$ for advertisements on the page). The persons downloading the clip have done something illegal. It has been openly seen, without the need for a warrant, by the rightful owners, and they have asked that google remove it. Google refuses, the owner then begins a lawsuit. Where is Viacom the big, bad villan here? Just because it is asking google to follow the law? Or because google gives money to charity? There are thousands of dirty corporations that give money out to charity...its called publicity. I will close by saying that I like google, I think their company seems well run and overall a good social model for other companies to follow, but in this case they have crossed the line and need to follow the law.

by matthew Hertz, saint Paul, on Jul 07, 2008 10:32 PM, Report abuse

Carmen What would the point be of posting something in a fourm I didn't want the public to see??? I don't like the websites tracking where I go but there is nothing I can do about it besides deleteing my cookies evertime I shut down my browser. I know full well everything and I do mean everything is logged and available. This is the price we pay for the internet use it with caution

by JohnMc, Lawndale, on Jul 08, 2008 01:57 AM, Report abuse

Anony, The companies DO have a business plan. The plan is to put THEIR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL on THEIR WEBSITES. If you want to watch it for free, go to their website. The fact that some people think that just because it is on the web, it is free to use as you want, is absurd. It is a fact that Viacom has tried to keep this out of the court system by asking Google to work with them to reduce the number of ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS of shows, but it is GOOGLES GREED that has forced Viacom to go to court. And by the way, your final comment..."they should all have to wear scarlet letters on their double breasted suits. Easier to find the targets that way ;) " do you suggest violence against people who are trying to stop the THEFT of THEIR PROPERTY? Hmmm...no wonder you are anonymous. Try writing a comment that your are proud to put your name to.

by Matthew Hertz, Saint Paul, on Jul 07, 2008 08:43 PM, Report abuse

Ah yes, Greedy Google...one of the best places to work in the country...gives away the vast majority of what they do for free....oh how I wish the greed would stop! They should make us pay for things email and word processing and internet searching...they should pay their employees less and stop giving them all those stupid benefits! What is the world coming to?!?!?

by Nick, Sioux Falls, SD, on Jul 07, 2008 09:07 PM, Report abuse

Matthew, it isn't up to the VIEWER's to help a company protect it's property. If Viacom is so interested in its rights, then they should look to themselves to find out what the problem is. Are their prices to high? Should they offer some movies for free? I mean, they have the problem and I am not going to help them by giving them all my personal information so they can solve it. No, I don't want my interent habits or any other personal information handed over to someone like it was a piece of meat for sale. Viacom has the problem, they need to solve it. I don't see my name above their corporate doors. I don't want to help them solve a problem they themselves created!

by Carmen, Laguna Beach, on Jul 07, 2008 10:30 PM, Report abuse

Carmen, Good point, it is not the viewers responsibility to help Viacom. But it is their responsibility to act in a legal manner. If I do not like the prices Viacom charges, I simply do not watch. I do not have the right to take the movie or TV show without paying. It is that simple. Don't like the show...don't watch. We as a society have begun to take on an erroneous logic that says 'if I don't like the price I have to pay, I can steal it'. It started with music and has moved to movies. What's next...cars? (I don't like the price of the new Prius, and since the auto maker CEO has billions of dollars, I am within my right to steal the car I want.) Hmmm...sounds stupid, but not far off from where we are now with digital theft.

by matthew Hertz, saint Paul, on Jul 07, 2008 10:44 PM, Report abuse

Matthew, you are right of course. Heck, I am not even a member of YouTube but I am pro active on this issue. One of the problems I see is that some people don't put a value on digital downloads be it movies or anything else. They don't see it as stealing because no 'actual' product is involved. It's not the same as stealing a car from the dealer. Until Viacom or someother entertainment corp is able to change how some people view digital content, the problem will continue. Since that is not going to happen, these companies need to work on the way they not only do business but the way they see their business from the outside. You can place all the fees and fines you want on people who illegally up/download but it won't put a dent in the process. People are still downloading illegal music. Again, I think Viacom is trying to put the horse back in the barn after the door was opened. What they need to do is design a new barn.

by Carmen, Laguna Beach, on Jul 08, 2008 12:47 AM, Report abuse

Nick wake up if Google wasn't makeing money and a boat load of it thier stock wouldn't be going for 514+ a share. Sure thay give a lot of stuff away but think what they are pulling from your computer to make that money.

by JohnMc, Lawndale, on Jul 08, 2008 01:46 AM, Report abuse

Sometimes my caps lock key gets stuck too...its ok...it happens to the best of us..

by Adam, Virginia, on Jul 07, 2008 08:54 PM, Report abuse

I thought this line of reasoning is one of the things that lead to the War of Independence. It doesn't matter what I may or may not have done illegally. What matters is that nobody's supposed to violate my privacy unless there's sufficient evidence that makes such violation justified. Handing over everybody's information so Viacom can sift through it to find copyright violators is such unreasonable violation of privacy. It would be equivalent to your local hospital handing over every patient's record to a insurance company so they can sift through it to find someone commiting insurance fraud.

by Anonymous, madison, on Jul 07, 2008 09:10 PM, Report abuse

How would you know if you have break copyright law by watching Youtube video, without clicking on the video? My 2 cents here VIACOM need to lay off Youtube user. They can just demand Youtube to not allow copyrighed material.

by Ezu, Chicago, on Jul 07, 2008 09:27 PM, Report abuse

What you fail to realize is if all of our information is freely available to anyone that wants it, YOU too will be included along with all those that are downloading illegally. This is a wide net Viacom is throwing out and you will be caught up in it as well. So don't think you will be excluded from having all your stuff thrown out there too.

by Carmen, Laguna Beach, on Jul 07, 2008 10:22 PM, Report abuse

I agree that I am in the same 'net' as the violators. That is where, in this case, the courts have a huge headache. they have said that Viacom must show that there are people behind the statistics of violations, so they have allowed Viacom to get the usernames to prove the statistics are accurate. The headache comes with making sure that viacom does not use the information for any other purpose but pleading their case. This is problematic at best, and I for one am not happy with the situation. However, Viacom has the right to persue legal action. Unless google were to actually work with viacom instead of fighting it, information will pass hands. Viacom has cast a wide net, but it is the only net, at this point, that they have been allowed to cast. Google could help shrink the net, but they choose not to. Maybe we should be pushing google to give up the data on illegal downloads to spare the innocent users the invasion fears. Do you think they would be willing to do that? Or just stop allowing copyrighted material to be loaded on youtube? Probably not, since it would cripple, if not kill, the site, and money would be lost.

by matthew Hertz, saint Paul, on Jul 07, 2008 10:55 PM, Report abuse

I have a problem with making users responsible for protecting Viacom's interest. If Viacom has a problem with illegal downloading/uploading of it's product, it is up to Viacom to look at itself for the solution. YouTube is only a symthom of a huge problem. It Viacom does manage to shut down illegal action via YouTube, another site will pop up or everything will go underground. The problem is that Viacom needs to look at it's pricing sturcture. Obviously, some people don't think the current retail price is worth the current product Viacom is putting out. That's a problem. Viacom has a major distrubrution problem. It's old. Perhaps they need to start a memebership club where people pay a monthly charge and can view a limited amount of video. I don't know but I do know that shutting down YouTube or chasing people who download or upload, is NOT going to solve this problem. Instead of trying to make the users responsible for there antiquated business model, they should start back at square one and revamp their model. Shutting down the YouTube door and harassing users will do nothing and will not make their problems go away. All it does is create bad PR for Viacom and in the end the only people they end up hurting is themselves.

by Carmen, Laguna Beach, on Jul 08, 2008 12:26 AM, Report abuse

Craig, Excellent idea! I am not sure I agree that Viacom should THANK google, but the idea that THE USER pays a small amount to view such material is very interesting. Especially if it went to charity! Youtube could have a member section that would hold copyright material for member viewing, with links to the websites for more detailed viewing and/or purchasing. Good thinking!

by Matthew Hertz, Saint Paul, on Jul 07, 2008 08:48 PM, Report abuse

What would make the most sense is if YouTube and the copyright owners get together to provide legal downloads of the material with a limited number of advertisements or promos per program. This is how television and radio can fund their broadcasting and not charge viewers. Yeah ad's are annoying, but its a small price to pay for free, legal content.

by Jordan, Des Moines, on Jul 07, 2008 09:25 PM, Report abuse

You are missing the message here. People already KNOW where to purchase movies or TV series . They go to YouTube to view them for free! If they aren't allowed to do that anymore, they will just find someplace else to do it. These people cost the entertainment industry NOTHING. They weren't going to buy them in the first place. They aren't even in the market. If Viacom keeps pushing they will only succeed in pushing the whole thing underground. Viacom should be looking at it's price structure and find a price that these people think the product is worth. Right now, they don't think $39.93 is a good deal.

by Carmen, Laguna Beach, on Jul 07, 2008 10:11 PM, Report abuse

Ever visit a cinema?

by zod, hollywood, on Jul 07, 2008 09:01 PM, Report abuse

George, The courts have already said that is not enough, from a legal standpoint. Simple(?) statistics do not hold up in court in a case such as this. You need to be able to show your data is coming from real users, not just made up data.

by Matthew Hertz, Saint Paul, on Jul 07, 2008 08:51 PM, Report abuse

Perhaps you're not aware of how MD5 works. Given the limited number of IPv4 addresses, it would be very easy to switch those MD5 strings back into IPs. Unless of course they were salted, but then they would be useless to Viacom. MD5ing the usernames would be slightly better, but Viacom could still, given any username on YouTube (they're all publicly available) easily get the MD5 string for that user and then match it up with the records. MD5 is not a good solution here.

by BobYourUnkle, , on Jul 07, 2008 05:43 PM, Report abuse