Judge Protects YouTube Code, But Opens User Records
A Manhattan district judge gave Google some partial victories this week in its copyright-infringement battle with Viacom over YouTube. Last year, Viacom sued Google and its YouTube site for $1 billion for what it called unauthorized use of video clips from Viacom properties.
In Wednesday’s decision, Judge Louis L. Stanton granted a protective order to Google so it doesn’t have to turn over its search source code as Viacom requested. Viacom argued it wanted to show that Google did not have copyright filters, but Google countered — successfully, at this round — that the code is a trade secret. The search code is used both on YouTube.com and on Google’s main search engine.
Needs ‘Plausible’ Showing
In his decision, the judge said Google and YouTube “should not be made to place this vital asset in hazard merely to allay speculation.” He added that a “plausible” showing that Google/YouTube’s denials were false and that the search function “can and has been used to discriminate infringing content” should be required before “so valuable and vulnerable an asset is compelled.”
The judge said there was no evidence that the search engine can separate clips that violate someone else’s copyright, such as Viacom’s, and those that do not. He did leave open that there may be other ways to filter infringing clips.
Stanton also turned down Viacom’s request for Google to deliver its electronic-index data for its advertising and video-content databases, or for the source code of YouTube’s video-identification tool. The video ID program enables holders of copyright material to provide YouTube with samples, so infringements can be tracked down on the site.
One aspect of Viacom’s case has been that YouTube does not merely share video content that users upload, but that the site copies the uploaded content onto its servers and makes that content available via its search…