SF Chron: Privacy rights at stake as judge orders YouTube to hand over data about who

[ACW]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/03/BUUL11JTB3.DTL

[Larry]

I can understand them demanding records as to which videos get watched.

I think them demanding to know who is watching them goes too far. It has no relevance to their case.

('Course, I'll point out that if companies like YouTube didn't keep records on every single user's viewing habits (for the specific purpose of having valuable private information for later use or sale), then there wouldn't be any records for them to demand.)

As to Viacom's case: I think it should be thrown out. For several reasons, the main one being that it's completely impossible for anyone to comply with Viacom's demands. (What they're demanding is that YouTube remove all copyrighted material from their site, before anybody tells YouTube that video so-and-so is copyrighted.)