This week saw a big UGC story hit the headlines.
Ever since YouTube was sold to Google the legal sharks have been circling to file damages as a result of the huge amount of content that is being illegally distributed.
Viacom have led these efforts and this week it appears they’re having success with their $1 Billion lawsuit – see the legal document at the Wired Blog. Google have been ordered to share with Viacom full details on all of YouTube user’ IP addresses and usernames plus the history of videos they’ve watched.
Google has also been ordered to hand over information on all videos that have been removed from YouTube along with the IP address and the username of the person who uploaded them.
Makes me wonder a few things:
> Why is Google keeping all this information in an user identifiable format?
> Why is personally identifiable information important to proving Viacom’ claim that YouTube is a hotbed of priated video content? Surely aggregate counts of views and users would be enough to prove this case?
> How many users will be directly prosecuted by Viacom as a result of this illegal uploading?
> Why does Viacom seem unconcerned with consumer backlash to their brands for this individual privacy infringement?
This also has an implication to an interesting fact I discovered this week at the Mobile Communities & UGC Conference I was speaking at in Amsterdam. 80% of ALL content uploaded to SeeMeTV (a premium mobile video site that charges customers to upload content) is deleted instead of being posted because it is “inappropriate”.
It seems certain that user generated content sites need a completely new approach.
