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The YouTube/Google/Viacom Stipulation and An Encouraging Patent Order, as text

By Pamela Jones et al.

Here is the Viacom-YouTube Google stipulation on privacy, technically called the Stipulation Regarding July 1, 2008 Opinion [PDF] that YouTube just announced, as text.

The important part of the agreement is this: Google gets to substitute values for User IDs, IP addresses and Visitor IDs before handing the database over to Viacom. The parties will figure out next exactly how to do it so that unique values are substituted, so that you can still tell when one individual uploaded 10 zillion videos and 10 zillion individuals only 1 each. Viacom promises not to circumvent the encryption. The parties have not agreed about encrypting the records of any uploading by Google/YouTube employees in the course of their business activities, something I gather Viacom wants to get hold of as part of its quest to prove Google is responsible for infringing content, despite the safe harbor section of the DMCA:

The parties do not agree whether the arrangements contained in Paragraph 1 should extend to records reflecting the business activities of the parties' employees and agents, including whether the obligations are reciprocal.

Ah! Reciprocal. Otherwise known as tit for tat. Google would like to know what Viacom employees have uploaded to YouTube if Viacom is going to ask for the records on Google employees. So, while the parties argue about all that, the records will be encrypted and turned over to Viacom, and then within two weeks the parties will try to work out the rest, and if they fail, either party can bring the dispute to court. I think you could say they've agreed in the big picture sense that they have agreed to go after each other while leaving end users out of it, so long as they are not employees of either party.

And someone sent me encouraging news of a decision in a patent infringement case by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Muniauction v. Thomson Corporation [PDF], on the subject of obviousness. It's interesting enough that I've done it as text also, right after the short Viacom/Google stipulation.

Full post as published by Groklaw on July 16, 2008 (boomark / email).