Viacom-YouTube Reach Deal to Anonymize User Data

Earlier we reported a court decision that handed over all YouTube user data to Viacom. As we know Viacom and YouTube are enmeshed in a lawsuit over copyrighted material uploaded to YouTube. The information was to assist Viacom in its case, but it was unclear why they needed user data to prove the amount of copyrighted material uploaded or viewed.

It seems (perhaps?) common sense prevailed, or maybe it was The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) chiming in (thank you), indicating that this was a clear violation of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).

Either way, Viacom and YouTube have come to an agreement. On Monday, in a blog post, YouTube said:

We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories and we will not be providing that information.

That statement doesn't say, but the .PDF "stipulation" does,

Defendants shall produce data from the Logging Database relating to the foregoing activities in anonymized form as provided in Paragraph 1.

Viacom will still get it, but at least it will be anonymized.

Of course, this isn't the end of this case. It won't go to court until next year, most likely. And as far as data goes, this isn't the end of that either.

Last weekend, C|Net reported that YouTube was refusing to hand over to Viacom information about what videos YouTube employees have watched or uploaded to the site. Naturally any such information - if confirming that employees indeed participated in viewing or uploading copyrighted material - could be pretty harmful to YouTube.