In a decision that shouldn’t be too shocking to any one, Google’s YouTube must give Viacom a complete log of all user activities. This comes as part of a $1 billion lawsuit filed by Viacom against YouTube.
So what does this mean for those users? YouTube must provide everything from their user names, IP addresses, as well as any videos that these users have watched in the past.
Viacom is not interested in going after individual users, but are far more interested taking down the internet giant, YouTube.
The reason Viacom has asked for this information is to prove that more people watch copyright-infringing video content on YouTube than anything else.
What this means for YouTube is a ruling which places them at fault for contributing to copyright infringement.
Viacom first launched the lawsuit in 2007, when it stated that users on YouTube checked out over 160,000 video clips which belonged to Viacom.
The goal of the company is to stop YouTube from using the unlicensed content.