thats a lot of trees

I love it. Erick – you’re a genius!

That’s a lot of “logs”

Youtube had a total disregard for copyrights and Google knew it when they bought them. What goes around comes around.

How many trees would 20 would it take to print out 20 terabytes of data?….

Hey Viacom: stop being a bunch of douche bags.

What’s the point of this post?

erick – please delete the comment of the a-hole who posted the readtheanswer link.. so lame.

Nice idea. But a huge of paper, so I wouldn’t actually do it.

Punch cards. I suggest punch cards.

how about Microfiche? Let them scan it and digest it on their own time and dime. :)
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-microfiche.htm

No. They should zip the data up, split it up into 1.4MB split RAR archives, and then deliver 9 million floppy disks.

… or a Microfiche with a watermark to discourage unauthorized reproduction.

“anyone who has ever used YouTube (i.e., almost everyone on the Internet). ”

wrong

“Google should print them out and deliver them on paper.”

did this tech crunch author even read the court order? wow

…so Google should pay the damages, not hand us over to the wolves!

“Google should print them out and deliver them on paper.” I think you are mad for saying that.

So you want trees to die just to send off some papers to Viacom?

While I think this idea is splendid, there was actually an Act passed by Congress a few years ago requiring that all inforrmation and documents presented in the discovery phase of a case be made available via electronic format.

It was an effort to keep the System up-to-date in case of an event just like this one. I can’t recall the name of the Act at the moment, but I’ll poke around and see if I can’t dig it up.

(Interestingly enough, I learned this at the Personal Democracy Forum last month in NYC, which I attended because of a pass I got from TechCrunch!)

My issue is that YouTube and Google *are* clearly in the wrong here. Sure, Viacom are being douche’s. But that we’re pulling for Google on this blows my mind. Google/YouTube stole. Clearly. Knowingly. And they still aren’t really doing anything about it.

Viacom being douche’s within their legal rights is somehow worse than Google being assholes *outside* of theirs?

Google shot itself in the foot by blaming users for the copyright violations under DMCA. The judge has responded in kind, requesting data on those users who acted as part of the violation. The form of the data is irrelevant – if Google complies (which it will because the alternative is to give up its source-code), it will litereally DESTROY YouTube just like Napster was destroyed. We still have Hulu though…(who’s ClownCo. now?)

Hey, here’s an idea: how about our American friends get their elected representatives to scrap the DMCA anyway? Then we can stop having to deal with this poo once and for all.

(of course it’s political)

@19

But it is not Google/YouTube who are ripping the videos, it is the users. If Google are held responsible, then are you suggesting that they vet every single item posted?

whatever happens, Google should at least pay any court-awarded damages in pennies…

I got yer legal tender RIGHT HERE!

Erick, are you trying to replace Duncan by commenting on legal processes on which you have done absolutely no research?

Think of the trees!

No they should deliver them on something painful like 5 1/4 floppies.

What they should do is not comply.

i understand where they are coming from but they do not need that data at all.

Google shouldn’t print that out, they should fax it to Viacom and let them foot the bill themselves.

@Player-x That’s innovative.

Google should deliver the logs in a stream of encrypted data at 1kb

will somebody, please, think of the trees?

According to CNet, the court specifically states that the data is to be handed over on multiple 1TB hard drives.

But since we’re having fun, I suggest Google output the logs on olde timey 1 inch wide ticker tape….. printed in binary.

(I win)

How is this an invasion of privacy? Google has this information anyway, so its there whether you like it or not.

YouTube has profited from copyrighted content and therefore is open to face these accusations, requiring them to hand over their data to prove their “innocence.”

Now, in what format it is handed over in is up to the “don’t be evil” chiefs… But one would argue, printing 12 terabytes of data on paper is “evil,” by way of wasting trees.

Google screwed it’s community on this one, by trying to explain how on the one hand they are able to keep pornography off of YouTube, and on the other they are unable to remove copyrighted materials.

Regardless of how you feel about producers of media, they have rights that need to be protected, ESPECIALLY if google is going to try and profit of providing copies of their products.

[...] [原文へ] [...]

Send them in Tree form its better for the environment
Greenpeace co-founder says use more trees, not less
http://tinyurl.com/6x2awg

ugh… do we have to go over this again?

The absolute BEST way to combat CO2 in the atmosphere is to cut down LOTS of trees and bury the wood in a land fill.

Printing out 20 TB on paper and storing it in a giant filing cabinet is the BEST thing we could do to help the environment. Viacom should demand the data in paper form and then sell the carbon credits to Gore.

willie, are you serious? Tree’s soak up cO2.

There should be smarter ways to prevent this rule to be implemented. But this is a good one, just for letting this judge to know what he is judging about. He is not getting it. Damn!!

Print them on the back side of that paper that MS shipped to Europe.

What a horrible waste of paper. Rather, feed the records into a tool that turns them into a video stream. Apply a little pixelation so even if individual records can be reconstructed, they still can’t be recognized reliably by OCR.

It’s an interesting dilemma. Google claims they’re the vehicle, that the users are responsible. Viacom and courts want to know who those users are.

Now, let’s say the number of users are in the tens of thousands. Will Viacom sue each of them? Will Viacom pick a dozen scape-goats to make examples out of them?

It’s like the VCR, the “mix-tape”, etc. Technology is giving us something new, that lots of people do, and instead of embracing the technology they’re fighting it.

How long will it be until someone starts a “post a viacom video on Youtube” day, and a “flash mob” of people do that?

Send it all in big giant CAPTCHAs. Anti-OCR.

This kind of precedent is dangerous. Now if any large corporation thinks maybe it’s possible their copyrighted content has been made available elsewhere they have every right to everything about that “elsewhere”. Example: they *think* you pirated a couple of TV shows, they now have complete legal access to all past, present, and future emails as well as every keystroke you type or have typed on your computer. You now have ZERO privacy, all because they think you might have pirated a TV show.

@41:

Hey!

That’s a great idea!

Brilliant! Unfortunately, most U.S. jurisdictions require the data to be delivered in the way in which it’s kept, but it’s fun to think about. And maybe the case is being fought in one of the districts in which there’s still a loophole. Possibilities…

Just wait until they get to the discovery phase. Then Google’s goose is cooked. I’ll bet there are several megs worth of emails back and forth from the googler’s (unless they’ve destroyed them — which would be felonious in intself) about how they knew the copyrighted content was up on YouTube and knew exactly where it was.

If Viacom’s lucky, they may even find email from some Google exec cogitating on how they could monetize all of that illegal copyrighted content. God knows they can’t find any other way to make money from this albatross.

You don’t have to like Viacom, but 19′s right… Google stole, wholesale theft and not just clips, oftentimes entire movies. They knew exactly what was being posted — No safe harbor for yooz!

Google’s douchiness out-douches the most doucheful of the douches.

@Jacob

Too true. I honestly think they will have almost every person’s email who has ever used the internet.

While I find Viacom’s court battle valiant, they are fighting a losing war. Haven’t they learned anything from the fiasco of shutting down Napster? The music industry hasn’t been the same since. There will always be a way for the copyrighted material to appear on the net and for someone to copy it and repost it somewhere.

If you can’t beat ‘em, might as well join ‘em.

I can hear the environmentalists chiming in now.

@44, well if they want it how it is kept, send it to them on drives formatted with GFS, they store the files in GFS themselves.

Oh… And Google’s high-falutin argument that this is all about protecting its users privacy is so rhetorically turd-infused its a real knee-slapper.

Google’s the worst privacy violater on the planet, but not the only one by far… Your ISP has the data, as does every router in between you and YouTube. You click on a YouTube link, and there are probably dozens of companies who log that click.

You’d have to be a real ass-hat to think your YouTube “click” was tucked nicely and securely away in Google’s “privacy-vault (guffaw!).

Okay, we can save the trees. I like the floppy disc and faxing ideas, except that stacks of paper are so much more visually satisfying. :)

Anyone else know about the law requiring all trial documents to be delivered in electronic form that Andrew, @18, is talking about? Does a fax count?

>> The court order never states what form, the data must be delivered in.

Except on page 13 where it states:

“While the Logging database is large, all of its contents can be copied onto a few “over-the-shelf” four-terabyte hard drives (Davis Decl. ¶ 22).”

Google tried to argue “…that plaintiffs’ request is unduly burdensome because producing the enormous amount of information in the Logging database (about 12 terabytes of data) “would be expensive and time-consuming…” So, they’d look like idiots if they delivered it in the most expensive and time-consuming format.

They could also deliver the data like all 0 bits on one HD and all 1 bits on another. Nobody ever said the data had to be in the right order, did they?

Viacom and the judge should be sued for attempting privacy invasion.

All this order does is give Viacom full access to data for market research purposes. Look at the other requests they made that the judge denied – such as the algorithm uses to return search results!

Attempted legally-supported open corporate espionage. That’s all this was *ever* about, methinks – getting a peak under the hood.

@51

“While the Logging database is large, all of its contents can be copied onto a few “over-the-shelf” four-terabyte hard drives (Davis Decl. ¶ 22).”

The operative word here is the descriptive “can” – meaning physically possible. If this were the prescriptive method, the word used would very likely be “shall” or “must” which have specific meanings in law (or so I understand, not being an attorney myself)

The order at the end of the document states

“The motion to compel production of all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website is granted;”

That seems pretty open ended to me. Paper would be the best, floppies would be fantastic, FAX is innovative, and the rest of the ideas speak to the absurdity of the situation, and the stupidity of the judge…. ok, maybe just senile and stuck in the paper age

Continuing my post… why in the world does Viacom even need data about who has viewed videos? I thought there was no legal issue about viewing copyright-infringing material, only distributing it.

I could understand YouTube having to hand over logs of anyone who has ever uploaded a video, but getting free privacy-invading data on everyone who has ever viewed something is preposterous!

Google didn’t steal. They’re providing a service. There’s still many viral videos that are published legally by users. Certainly, users are using this service to spread so-called copyrighted videos (and I call it so-called because I don’t believe in copyrights in the first place). As far as YouTube/Google making money, I doubt it. Eric Schmidt had said that they still are investigating ways of monetizing YouTube. Heck, they even bribed a few of the major recording industries to allow users to post/host music videos legally (or at least get the studios to use their service as a CDN to host the studios’ music videos).

I’m certain Google buying YouTube was a twofold political deal to prevent another Napster disaster from initially happening (as well as using it as a potential advertising platform for their AdWords). Naturally, the very nature of YouTube was a ticking time bomb. However, I argue that YouTube has done more good for the world than hurting the few companies, lawyers, executives and shareholders who typically are overcompensated in the first place. I mean, take a look at how Japanese game shows are now coming to America because Americans (and others) have become fascinated. Without YouTube and similar viral mechanisms on the net, these shows would remain local only to Japan. Also, providing unlimited access to videos, legal or not, allows cross culturalism where people from other countries have the capability of people’s content. For instance, Fernando Miyata is slowly being discovered as one of the best guitarist in the world. Lastly, (and here’s important point) is that YouTube has globally allowed people easy access to as much content as its available. Distributors have always been stingy about the way they market their stuff. Worse yet, they stop supporting their own artists after their artists fade (or rather when these corporations decide they no longer want to market them). Instead, we’re treated to nostalgia by allowing us to view things locked away in dusty vaults. We have history and can educate people on our past culture through the use of viral videos. However, because corporations, lawyers, executives and shareholders are all stingy bastards, everyone except them loses in this.

It’s not intellectual property anymore. It’s not about individuals. It’s just corporate assets. That’s what they should call this from now on. Give it a cold, hard name so that people will stop sympathizing with these artists puppets and call it what it is.

@52 Typical freetard

For all of those people so concerned about the trees …

There are more pulp-growing forests in the US now than in 1920.

Fewer trees than ever are being cut down for paper because of recycling, and the declining newspaper business.

It would actually offer a minor bump to the pulp industry that could relieve the price pressure newspapers are dealing with right now.

That said, I still like the microfilm and floppy disk ideas.

I think they should make a giant video and roll the information as credits.

for what reason has Google collected and stored that data in the first place? If Google would not be such a data maniac the court order would not even exist.

How about printed on toilet paper in Aramaic hieroglyphs?

Or they can say they sent it to Karl Rove first and he lost it.

What really annoys me is that we are getting face-to-face with Google’s idiotic, dogmatic data retention policies, that of never destroying anything; why did they keep such logs in the first place ?

What will happen when they subpoena all of the search logs next ?

Why did we ever trusted them with such data in the first place ?

I guess that’s why they posted their privacy policy today. Because there’s none.

Google should send the data encoded in UTF-16, as pure binary. and then use some DRM technique to stop viacom from translating the data electronically.

So it will all have to be done by hand. Mwhahahahaaaa, this solves the whole tree cutting problem. However i do like the idea, of faxing the data to viacom, so they foot the bill.

They also should print the data in a whitespace encoding.

I wonder what would happen if Google refused to produce the data or simply destroyed the data. Would the brand boost be worth it?

And waste so much of paper. Good for the ecology I say…

@ Unbelievable re:

“What really annoys me is that we are getting face-to-face with Google’s idiotic, dogmatic data retention policies, that of never destroying anything; why did they keep such logs in the first place ?”

Google knows the value of any and all info. They are a gigantic vacuum cleaner sucking up and organizing all info and reaping the Metcalfe’s Law benefits. Unfortunately the world is not “all good” and as they accumulate power/value (believe me, the retroactive quant and behavioral data they’re amassing is invaluable) they must play games with other power players. How they choose to play those games ultimately determines their value, how the other actors react and our relationship to our behavioral data.

In Dune-ian terms: He who controls the data controls the universe – and everyone wants to. But he who destroys data also exerts control and R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I smell a big ass showdown, if Google is serious about doing no evil, a statement which they have been carefully backing away from for very real and serious reasons.

Your move Googlio.

Nice (-: YouTube stole the content from Viacom so let them bleed!

how do you actually get 12-20TB of data to them anyway? DVD’s? Email? a whole server rack full of jbods?

Perhaps Google could encrypt all that data (you know, for security reasons… because this process could take a long time) and then send it to Viacom via morse code using 1′s and 0′s?

OR

Following on from their Google IO shirts, perhaps provide the information on a series of limited edition tshirts?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/28/google-gets-fancy-with-google-io-tshirts-too-fancy/

?

Send them via Morse code
or with smoke signals
or with 1 inch punch cards that only a PDP-1 can read
or in color-coded peanuts
or via an 8-baud modem from the 70′s

:D

Viacom is stupid. they get free advertising through YouTube,
and they should negotiate with Google just for that alone.
in our time, its easier for people to stop watching any Viacom content,
than YouTbue. And they know that, but try to suck some quick cash from big G by using that as an excuse.

What a waste of resources that would be – on paper. are there that many trees?

instead !! and a better idea maybe a massive jpeg image with a really random background so that the text can not be read by machines :)

Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio would be proud.

To the commenters above that said google/youtube are clearly in the wrong – Viacom is attempting to prove not that youtube clearly benefitted from copyrighted material, but that they skewed search results in favour of them, and that they used them to spur their core business.

There was certainly copyrighted material all over the shop, but that this was the point of youtube? :p

Sir Roland Wilson was a Australian Commonwealth Statistician (Head of the Bureau of Statistics) in the 1930′s and 1940′s.

During a tax evasion case, he was asked to supply some private data from one his data providers. He incinerated all such data rather than supply any, at considerable professional risk.

I wonder if Google exec.’s are similarly protective of their users?

@Alvin

It would be interesting to see what happened if there were to be an ‘accident’ with the data. A fire, perhaps., and a coincidental lack of backups.

why stop at only 20 TB? Google can do better than that.

Why not rolling all of the videos in a single uncompressed high-definition video file, starting with all the two girls one cup submissions, with credits to the uploaders, and flashing the names of users in different fonts and styles and colors and sizes?

Of course, there is no need to use these fancy codecs to compress anything; just send the uncompressed raw video by email to Viacom, copying the judges and a special server in Google set up to receive such a monster.

Neither viacom or the judge would be able to handle the little monster, and google would have fully complied.

Everyone should follow the law. We need it for a better society.

Failing that, burn it to cds. It will only take about 30,000.

Oh, fuck the LAW. The law is a whore like everyone else. Do you really think anyone with money and power gives a fiddler’s fart about the law? I’m getting so sick of this business of tracking everything anyone’s ever done, analyzing it, selling it, data-mining & going back to charge people with “crimes”. This is some sick, OCD, anorexic-weighing-their-own-feces kind of stuff. It’s the kind of control freak shit that will leave us all sitting alone in apartments tearing up while we reminisce about when people actually had lives, to say nothing about the ridiculous legal possibilities it raises. Fuck the law, fuck Google, Viacom & the courts. I just want to go outside forever and never look at another computer.

[...] Schonfeld von Techcrunch hatte eine augenzwinckernde Idee für Youtube. Nachdem Youtube richterlich dazu gezwungen wurde alle Logfiles an den US- [...]

[...] TechCrunch mit dem Vorschlag, dass Google die Daten einfach auf Papier übergeben soll [...]

Yes, there is something really OCD about all the legal crap these huge companies do to enforce copyright. It fucks them all in the ass.

Case in point: You can’t even buy Ally McBeal or the Wonder Years on DVD in the US, so all you people that loved those shows have NO way of watching that show legally unless some poor network has nothing else to show and puts those on for reruns. Or until they buy the Region 2 version and wonder why it don’t play on their DVD player. And why? Because paying for rights to all the music used in the show for the DVD sets is too expensive, so Fox (and what network was Wonder Years?) just canned the show instead for US viewers. There goes all the LEGAL purchasers for those shows. Worse, the networks aren’t even terribly open with people about this, so there are tons of unenlightened fans out there who in their frustration end up turning to… YouTube, torrenting, pirated copies, etc. (And just so I’m totally open here, those shows may still go out on DVD… but the music licensing is holding them up indefinitely with NO definite release dates and has been for years now.) There goes a few angry would-be customers that won’t trust the network to give them what they want.

So in the end, what is YouTube? A way to get media that you wouldn’t get because a) it’s not available legally in your jurisdiction, b) it’s way too expensive (have you seen how much imports cost at Virgin and even the international Amazon’s?) or c) you see no reason to upgrade to cable to see one show which you might buy on DVD later but will watch clips of on YouTube until then – or until Viacom ends up suing your ass right after they burn Google for your name and location and $1B and you can no longer afford any media whatsoever.

Keep making us hate you, big companies. We may be chained to your shows and your rappers and your movie stars, but when you’re burning, they can always sign on with another company and the show will go on.

In paper form, in a gothic font, 5 points, single-spaced, on both sides of the page. Should reduce the number of pages required by a good deal and OCR software can handle that for Viacom. Might take a while though…

@Shams
The law is a gallows to hang the poor and unprivileged. Nobody in power gives a crap about the law, they will do anything within their power to subvert the law or interpret it to their own best interest. -If- everybody indeed followed the law, that would work to build a harmonious and stable society [provided the laws themselves were any good]. As it is now, the law works against the people, not for them.
The law says, among other things, what the minimum wage is. Have you ever heard of someone who decided what the minimum wage is who had to actually live off of it?

Screw the law.

Ok they have my IP address, time of connection and user, and then what? You are going to come to spain for ask my isp my data? You need a spanish judge to do that. Even having my real name (easy if you are a bit smart) the worst they can do is to forbid me to enter in USA. But is imposible to do that with all the people in all the world.

Fight for your rights USA citizens, don’t allow this mafia to do whatever they want to do.

Good luck.

It would be completely ridiculous if Google had to get that. If they obtain this information, then they are really infringing upon a lot more privacy than anyone could have ever expected. I don’t know what the judges are thinking but they are extra stupid!

However Google decides to hand the data over should be cheap and easy to them – I suggest they tell Viacom that if they want the data they can copy it out (preferably by hand) themselves.

Why not send it as a series of images instead. You could even distort them in ways the impede optical character recognition without making problems for humans. That would be just as effective and more environmentally friendly.

Amazing all the concern for trees – which, by the way is a renewable resource.

The point of the post, which is obviously lost on the tree huggers who really do take life MUCH TOO SERIOUSLY, is that Viacom wants data that it really has no right to have. Thus, to make a point to Viacom, Google – should it really be required to provide the data after exhausting all available appeals – should deliver the data in the least convenient form possible.

At some point I hope people stop patronizing companies like Viacom who are contented to conduct business ‘Via” 20th century methods. The music industry is suffering greatly because of its idiotic approach to digital data. Now the same should happen to the movie/TV industry. As a website owner/content producer, I’m all for protecting rights to one’s creative content, but the onerousness of this ruling shows that the media companies have not a clue as to how to move forward in a digital age.

Yawn, Is anyone else waiting for Google to Take over the WOrld? Its gonna happen sooner or later you know.

JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

Hahaha! That floppy disc idea is fantastic. Finally a good use for the millions of 1.4mb floppies that are laying around all over the place. Put the records on them and send them to Viacom with a bill.

This is madness on the part of the US government.
They want to see who, when, what and from the IP? If that isn’t big brother – invasion of privacy, then I don’t know what is.
They can use that for other purposes, like who is watching anti-gov vids, anti-bush vids, religious vids and so on!
If they need to now how many times their material is viewed, its already available.
But to get what someone is watching personally and when and from the IP, that is totally against all privacy!!!
This is not only a fight for Google/youtube, its a fight for every individual!!!
Stand up and shout!

@92 It’s not the government, it’s a corporation. Keeping the logs of who is watching and from what IP in the first place is against all privacy. Google is just as fucked as Viacom. They are not the good guys.

Don’t forget, google’s business is not running a search engine, it’s selling advertising. And it does that by collecting information about you. And keeping it forever.

Google is not your friend.

Just this once, it’s worth the freaking trees. It’s a small one-time fee for a phenominal service, and one we can’t afford not to buy.

Excellent suggestion. Do it.

> They can use that for other purposes, like who is watching anti-gov vids, anti-bush vids, religious vids and so on!

Well put. I say we EMP google. Wipe the slate clean!

[...] be getting all the records of every video every Youtube user has ever looked at (although I like this suggestion of how Google could rebel against the [...]

That’s a lot of trees to kill, and overall impractical. If we are going to suggest a realistic way for Google to limit what Viacom can do with the data perhaps Google should generate an electronic log of the information and then convert it to image format with a bunch of those nifty watermarks and distortions to prevent image parsers from automatically extracting the contents.

It would take Viacom employees hundreds of years to make any sense of the data!

They should just deliver the files via bittorrent.

In jpg format ! Not parsable and you save the trees….

Sorry to rain on the parade, but the recently revised Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will require the parties to agree on the format of the documents and data to be discovered. If they cannot, the judge will decide what is most reasonable and expedient. You are not the first person to think of this. Dumping HUGE volumes of paper on the opposing party in response to discovery was a tactic used by litigators for decades in large-scale, corporate cases. Clearly, no court is going to allow that volume of information to be delivered in printed format – not just because of the wasted paper, expense and inconvenience, but because it would deprive the party requesting the information of all of the valuable metadata that comes along with the records when they are delivered in native format. THAT is where the real treasure trove can be in some of these cases. THAT’s what the parties are often fighting about in these cases – the exact specifications for the electronic format and who will pay for the cost of resurrecting old systems so that they can be restored from ancient backup tapes in the hope that there MIGHT be some relevant information contained in an old email or database. Sorry to burst your bubble – Good sentiment but the legal system is a few steps ahead on this one.

Why are they keeping my data? Of course they will give them up.

You are getting it all wrong. The Method for sending this kind of data is to save it as a giant .jpg file, print the binary, and then fax it to Viacom.

[...] de logs en un formato innovador. El total de datos que piden los demandantes suma 12 terabytes. Yo estoy totalmente de acuerdo con este art�culo, lo suyo ser�a llev�rselos a Viacom en papel. Impresos, todo un acto de desobediencia ciudadana ante un abuso manifiesto. Algo as� como toda la [...]

This whole situation is such a joke… Every other day it seems like it gets worse and worse.

Schonfield – you muppet, this not an environmentally friendly suggestion now is it? Dipshit.

even better would be semaphore or morse code

[...] dass Eric Schonfeld von Tech Crunch sich (ungewollt) auch uns Europäern anbiedert (vgl. Department of Civil Disobedience: Google Should Deliver Its YouTube Data to Viacom in Paper Form, engl.), indem er den spaßigen Vorschlag unterbreitet, Google möge die geschätzten [...]

Brilliant! Use recycled paper! And offer to recycle the paper when they are done with the data.

Am I missing something here? Isn’t the data on videos posted and logins available *on YouTube*? Just send them the url and let them get it themselves.

Google moet 20 terabyte YouTube gegevens aan Viacom geven, in papier!…

20 terabyte gegevens leveren in papier, wat een verspilling!…

What about the videos they’re supposed to turn over? Should they burn each one separately to a LaserDisc and hand them in that way?

No. Instead of thinking about how to deliver the data, they need to focus on whupping Viacom in court on the appeals process.

And because the data contains a lot of third parties data, there is also plenty of opportunities to get third parties to sue to halt the delivery of their data to Failcom.

Print them out, are you nuts. What a waste of paper that will be.

I think the best idea is to send them as an animated GIF with .01 second frames for each character.

And why doesn’t the United States of America just do a class-action law suit against Viacom for use of their private information without their permission?

:)

I think everyone that has ever posted on youtube should request the same access to the files that viacom is receiving- hasn’t viacom now set a precedent?

This is the stupides post i’ve ever read on TechCrunch, or I hope you are joking. And if you are, it’s not funny!!!

How can you encourage such a waste of trees and energy. As a european, I could say that this is typically American: “don’t care about the planet”.

You completely lost my respect by doing this! People trust you when they read you, you have a responsability.

I don’t agree with wasting paper, but forget about that.

I see a big problem here for users who are outside the jurisdiction of the US Court of Law. Im not an expert on that, but hey Mr. Judge and VIACOM, you CAN NOT have our logs just like that. Are you going to start a World War 3?!

[...] Google se enfrenta a un nuevo problema de derechos de autor, está vez con Viacom quien tendrá acceso a las direcciones de IP de los usuarios de Youtube con el propósito de analizarlas y obtener pruebas para su caso contra YouTube de Google, pareciera que la orden judicial representa una serie de requerimientos que según comentan en Techcrunch deben ser creativos para cumplirlos. [...]

No so green!

This entire thing is ridiculous..Viacom is trying to stop a revolution in the way people share media, their attempts will only be a speed bump in the way of this new distribution media. But I blame Google themselves, they should not have any log of what users are watching greater then a few months old at most. If Google would just delete this information after, say, 30 days, they would have much less then 12 TB of info for the goons at Viacom to pilfer.

As others have noted, the paper idea is cute but would be very seriously frowned on by the court. The trick is making the process combersome, but not so overtly that it it can be objected to by Viacom or the court.

if they do this, it should be printed using an 8 point size font.

preferably comic sans.

who needs paper, just send it over a 1200 baud modem.

[...] Department of Civil Disobedience: Google Should Deliver Its YouTube Data to Viacom in Paper Form (tags: youtube privacy Google law) [...]

[...] på. Det är innebörden av det domslut som fallit i processen som Viacom drivit mot Google, enligt TechCrunch. TechCrunch uppmanar till “civil olydnad” och föreslår att Google överlämnar [...]

[...] 2 – Department of Civil Disobedience: Google Should Deliver Its YouTube Data to Viacom in Paper Form [...]

[...] Department of Civil Disobedience: Google Should Deliver Its YouTube Data to Viacom in Paper Form (tags: google youtube privacy humor) [...]

Better idea: just force them to read TechCrunch posts. They’ll drop the lawsuit.

[...] Department of Civil Disobedience: Google Should Deliver Its YouTube Data to Viacom in Paper Form This suggestion reminds me of a line from an ancient (i.e. ~80s era) science fiction novel I once read. (The title was something along the lines of “The Adolescence of P4” or somesuch.) [...]

The earlier poster is correct about the amendments to the Federal Rules of civil procedure. Google will have to produce it manner the parties agree to. Second, google cannot appeal this order because it is an interlocutory order (i.e. One which does not dispose of the case). Third, there is no “right” to privacy that would protect the revealing of the information sought in this case.

So much hate and misguidance.

Let’s face it, we are fucked on this one. No matter how loudly we scream, Viacom will most likely get the data.

What I propose is that we organize a YouTube Blackout Month (boycott) right after the data handover. Personally, I’m already boycotting RIAA/MPAA’s products, although a disciplined RIAA/MPAA boycott would be worth it as well. That should raise a few eyebrows.

But, we will never be able to pull this off. The day that The People can organize into one cohesive mass and start to actually let their voices be heard, is the day shit like this will stop happening. But nobody wants to be inconvenienced. And that’s why we, as consumers, will _NEVER_ win. In fact, we were all raised to buy buy buy, to be good little dumb consumers, to spend money on stupid things, to opportunistically take take take, future of our kids and their kids be damned. The dumber we get, the better consumers we make; but it also makes it harder for us to act against the grain, to pose questions, to resist an oppressive regime or bullying company.

Still, social commentary aside, show of hands — who’s with me? Boycott YouTube for a month?

This decision has seriously dangerous implications to political disidents. See..

http://zennie2005.blogspot.com/2008/07/viacom-and-judge-louis-l-stanton-rob.html

The top brass at Google must have shit for brains if they didn’t Know that
youtube content was infringing copyright laws but that is why they paid
a hansome price for youtube they thought that they could get away with it
but what doesn’t surprise me is they are not prepared to take the rap
just drop all there users into a meat grinder of course they could of censored youtube content as to not infringe copyright but theres only one
company that i think has that capability and that is a company called Blinkx
as they have the technology that can tag copyrited material as it watches
and listens to the content unlike conventional metadata so the obvious
solution for google to save youtube would be to buy Blinkx.com

[...] has already been vastly commented upon, not least by the EFF. In fact, some suggest Google should hand over the data in paper form – it should be about as much paper as the entire Library of Congress book collection, therefore [...]

Gotta love the law’s – 20 tb of data equates to a hell of a lot of trees!

[...] the court used Google’s own data retention policies to justify its order. I did find this civil disobedience suggestion on TechCrunch amusing [...]

“intellectual property” = “imaginary property” != property. No property, no theft. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, freedom-hater. Information will be free, and you will be left behind.

PS: @doofus is right: Google is watching.

Perhaps the real question: will Google become Big Brother; or will it become Skynet?

A more viable alternative would be for Google to deliver the data in a digital form which is not searchable. This would most likely mean splitting the data into *many* individual zips delivered on seperate systems (floppies, disks, etc.)

Let’s see how Viacom handles billions of individual, encrypted emails with zips attached….

Poor trees…!

That s a lot of paper!

Name the forest. I ll gas up the chainsaw.

The fact that Google removes other types of content has little to do with the safe harbor protection Google claims. There is no requirement in the DMCA that says if you filter for one type of content you’re obligated to filter for copyright infringement. In fact actively policing for copyrighted material, as Viacom etc would like, may actually remove the safe harbor protection. Assuming Google is correct and they were covered by the safe harbor provision of the DMCA, they were acting against there own interest by acceding to the demands of Viacom and others that they start filtering for copyrighted material.

[...] Department of Civil Disobedience: Google Should Deliver Its YouTube Data to Viacom in Paper Form (tags: google youtube privacy humor) [...]

To all the people complaining about the waste of paper, and trees.

THIS POST IS ABOUT AN ENTIRELY FICTIONAL SITUATION.

Its meant to be some what amusing or tongue in cheek.

I’m sure Google put money away for any lawsuits that came along when they purchased You Tube. Viacom may be shatting its pants, and therefore suing, because of the diminishing viewers to mtv. I meant who watches it?

What music companies don’t understand, or don’t want to acknowledge is that now the use of the internet is prolific. So is the choice. We no longer need there top 40 hits, we can search for things we like. We no longer need to sit and watch Mtv with its endless repeats, or listen to commercial radio repeating the same 10 songs over and over again.

Instead of coming up with a new way of doing business, they sue people.

[...] Schonfeld报道： [...]

DO IT that would be great.

I surfed around and found a TOP TEN LIST on the People’s Reaction to Viacom’s Suit Against YouTube Inc. … just like Letterman’s.. but more serious :-)

http://www.techxiety.com/techxiety/2008/07/techxietys-top-ten-list—the-peoples-response-to-viacoms-lawsuit-against-youtube-inc.html

Proponen que Google entregue los datos de youtube en papel…

Ahora que parece que un juez va a obligar a Google a revelar un cerro de datos personales a Viacom (meneame.net/story/juez-ordena-youtube-entregar-ips-nombres-usuarios-vim), quizá ha llegado el momento de ponerse creativo con los métodos de entrega. …

[...] o se encuentren otras formas más creativas de entregar los 12 terabytes de datos. Fuente: The Crunch. Tema: Internet | Imprimir | Recomendar | Lecturas (0) |   Enlace inverso [...]

I have an idea.

Generate pfd´s and on each page use a different set of distorted fonts, with different non standard codes, so when you print it or when you look at it it´s understandable, but when you try to copy-paste you get pure rubbish.

They will have to find out the codes for each page (and they can generate billions of different fonts with different combinations each so font´s do not repeat), or they will have to use humans to translate the info.

As the fonts are distorted, and multiple fonts are used, any OCR will be useless, or really slow.

C’mon folks. IP protects big companies (including Google’s trademarks, source code, etc). and small folks, too (independent movie makers, songwriters, recording artists). Google is screwing creative people everywhere by pretending not to know what’s on YouTube. Viacom is putting content online — but it has no real choice but to demand that people not use their stuff without paying for it. If YT gets it free, why will people watch it on Hulu or anywhere else? I have a friend who has recorded three CDs – cost his bands a lot of money – only to find his songs all over the internet the next day. Is that fair?

[...] crazy over this latest decision in the ongoing battle between Google and Viacom. TechCrunch suggested that Google toy with Viacom by sending the records over in paper format. (The records total 12 [...]

[...] um leitor do Tech Crunch, um dos sites de tecnologia mais lidos mundo, achou que seria legal se o Google partisse para um [...]

[...] that’s already a little bit old, but made me smile: Google being subponaed to deliver 12 Tb of data to Viacom. In paper format. [...]

Yeah… I didn’t think they had the guts to go through with it. I’m sure the judge has seen this before, and had something up his sleeve to give a smack down.

how about on the tip of a needle?

[...] Department of Civil Disobedience: Google Should Deliver Its YouTube Data to Viacom in Paper Form [...]

To everyone that thinks this hurts trees, your an idiot. Google just needs to learn from Nixon’s mistake and burn the tapes.

[...] Of course, if it does go to the wire and the judge forces Google to give Viacom all this extra information that they don’t even want, TechCrunch has a great suggestion about the best way to deliver it. [...]

[...] Department of Civil Disobedience: Google Should Deliver Its YouTube Data to Viacom in Paper Form [...]

[...] Department of Civil Disobedience: Google Should Deliver Its YouTube Data to Viacom in Paper Form [...]

I had no idea that this was happening, thanks so much for posting. I am now in touch with my lawyer about making sure that MY information does not get turned over to anyone. I suggest that anyone else who competes against Viacom do the same. It is like using a Trojan Horse to gain company secrets that I chose to share with the select few who were previously interested in my topic area, but did not choose to send to my enemies who could use that information to undermine my company and my personal interests. I am as yet unaware of the reason that google has to turn information over to viacom but my shit can never hit the airwaves over broadcast TV as such I am very concerned with this move. What gives them the right?

Better Yet!!!!! Print it on rock and send it to them !!!!!

A) I don’t think the paper idea was serious, it’s more tongue in cheek, but if it was serious, there is always recycled paper, so greenies stop having heart attacks. In fact as the data has to be preserved, print it on hemp paper which is more durable and environmentally sustainable.

B) Chopping down trees and putting them in landfill cuts down CO2? Dear lord! Does Shooting icebergs into the sun cut down global warming?

C) The data has to be supplied in electronic format regardless of how many inventive ways you make up in the “if only” field of imagination but it IS funny to speculate, grow a sense of humour some of you!

D) Google voluntarily handed over (and continues to do so) names and info of dissenters and anyone else the Chinese authorities demands, the US is just being more inventive by using the presupposition of a court case to elicit the same information.

E) My suggestion would be to put all the data on ZX Spectrum Waffle Drives, or the old 8 inch 360k disc drives, or on ZX81 cassette format (all of which would actually satisfy the demands of handing them over in electronic format). 10 terrabytes of C90′s would be amusing!

I saw google has someone read them to Viacom, extremely slowly. This would use up quite a few more terabytes and Viacom would have to pay someone to write them all down. Google could even have its customers read off all the videos they’ve personally seen if they want.

dude, fuck trees. whats more important to you, the awesomest thing ever. or some fucking trees?
plus they could do an episode of the office where google buys all that paper

Ummm.. what about the fact that trees are good? you need them to live so they can give us OXYGEN!

Nice one, but if it a mater of keeping inside legal lines, the should only put one kilobyte of Information on each drive over a period of 1 year

Google comes up with their own text file format,
They come up with a proprietary reader, and sell if for an outrageous amount.
Convert all data to that file format, Viacom either buys reader form Google for asking price, or has to spend money to convert format.

Better yet, if one could copyright (I don’ think you can…) a file format, they can sell their reader for even more and if Viacom circumvents that, copyright violation. Bam, counter suite.

Lots of ‘if’s’ but these comments aren’t about being plausible.

maybe they could deliver it an archaic format, still electronic, 1′s & 0′s

Er…trees for paper typically come from tree farms. It’s a renewable resource, like corn, asparagus or chickens. The more paper the printing industries need, the more trees they plant. So, um, if you like trees, use more paper.

How about sending all the data over the telegraph via Morse code? How long would that take?

This article provides very little in the way of information, only states that the author obviously feels that the ruling is wrong. Why is there this ruling? What has YouTube done? Why have they been ordered to do this? Before I can agree or disagree with this ruling, it would be nice to know why it was even ruled.

As far as privacy goes, why does it violate my privacy? Why does it violate anyone’s privacy? Anything you post on YouTube is public, right? So are you arguing that it would be a violation of privacy for someone to know what has been posted and by whom on a site that releases video to the public? Or is it more the privacy of those that have viewed video?

I imagine that this has something to do with copyright, in which case YouTube is on shaky grounds, since they regularly post video that violates such laws.

Send Viacom the data in the form of millions of planes writing sky messages.

On second thought, that may not be a good idea: the clouds would prevent any human from seeing the sun for a few weeks.

Sure, let’s kill off a whole forest just to give Viacom some information that could be sent over the Internet. TechCrunch = Morons.

OK, if we’re having fun, how about floppies?

Nobody said it had to be in a MODERN electronic format. The 5¼-inch (35 track) Shugart SA 400 holds a whopping 89.6 kB formatted… let’s see… even if we round it up to 90 kB, that’s 11 per megabyte, 11,000 per gigabyte… 230,000,000 per terabyte… at 20 terabytes, that’s… 4,600,000,000 floppies. I don’t think there are that many left in the world!

I don’t even care

Hello, is this for real? is it for sure going to be implemented? I have a suggestion: send it in, bit by bit, in paper !!! Bureaucracies run in paper, that is their favorite format since biblical times. So, let them have it. I am positive that after the first truckload of it they will cease and desist.
Good heavens, someone must learn something, sometime. This is s great opportunity for teaching them fascists a nice lesson.

“Trees for paper come from tree farms” …..

Go back to your games looser.
Shoot yourself ( I wanted to say in your brain, but sorry you don’t one).

Dear Google

Please please please please do this.

Love,
Jon

If some comment (way up there) about the data being delivered on hard drives is right, they should take all the data, put it in a big winrar archive, and split it up into 2mB parts, and put that on the hard drives (also from a comment way up there).

That shit wouldn’t fly for a second. Viacom would just tell the judge, and he would order Google to submit the info electronically. He would probably sanction Google for such a stunt. It is a funny idea though.

I know that when I post this comment, may people will dismiss me as just another crazy anti smite racist bigot..but just read my comments and think outside the box for a minute.
The Dept of Civil Disobedience (whatever the fuck that is) is feeling tremendous amount of pressure from countless organized Jewish and Israeli groups (and there are literally hundreds) and their directive is simple. They want to limit (or eliminate all together) any video footage that is found to show Israelis (particularly Israeli solddiers) commiting violent and shameful terror against te Palestinian people. The Israeli’s popular meida and PR line that “It is only defending itself against terrorism” does not hold up well when this footage often shows innocent civilians getting killed and injuredby the thousands..and it gets in the way of their objective of anihalating the Palestinian people one member at a time..if neccessary. It also makes the US look bad for supporting this behaviuor with the billions of US dollars that are sent to Israel in aid every year. That is what this is all about..they don’t give a shit about any other content…you can take that to the bank Jack..

I was thinking that exact same thing!

You may be surprised to learn that about one-third of the raw material used to make paper in the U.S. is residue – wood chips and scraps left behind from forest and sawmill operations. These “leftovers” would probably be burned or discarded if not used by the paper industry.

Another third of the raw material is recovered paper. Although some papers contain 100 percent recycled fiber, papermakers often combine various amounts of recycled and new fiber to produce the desired quality and grade of paper.

Only about one-third of the fiber used to make paper in the U.S. is from whole trees, which the industry calls round wood. It is not considered economical to use large logs for paper when they could instead be used for lumber. For this reason, only trees smaller than 8 inches in diameter, or larger trees not suitable for solid wood products, typically are harvested for papermaking.

bullshit, they censor so much many people’s videos are taken down whether or not they are fair use, or if it is one of hundreds of thousands of flagrantly bs DCMA takedowns. Go kiss MPAA/RIAA ass elsewhere. I hope you get sued for using music in any video you make.