Legal News

Judge Under Fire for YouTube Order; Cap’n Awesome?s Unhappy

By Dan Slater

On Friday, the Law Blog will moderate a panel at the annual ABA program entitled, “Judicial Criticism: Judges Under Fire.”

We were looking for current case studies to discuss on the panel, when the following news of fall-out from the Viacom-Google battle came across our desk. The Judicial Reports blog reports that SDNY Judge Louis Stanton, who last month issued an order forcing Google to turn over to Viacom its records of which users watched which videos on YouTube, has come under some serious fire from YouTube users who have decided to broadcast their grievances on the video-sharing site.

In his order, Judge Stanton (Yale, UVA law) wrote that privacy concerns were “speculative” and argued that the YouTube database was needed for Viacom’s case because it is the only existing record of “how often each video has been viewed during various time periods.”

Some avid YouTube users are, to say the least, pretty teed off over that, reports Judicial Reports, which says that, almost immediately after the order was issued, “angry YouTube patrons began directing a stream of furious videos at Viacom and Judge Stanton for his perceived attack on privacy rights. . . .And they continued even after lawyers for the two corporations had negotiated a way to access the records without revealing the personal information of YouTube users.”

In all, at least 34 unique videos have addressed Judge Stanton and his decision. A YouTube regular who goes by the nickname “Cap’n Awesome” delivered an expletive-laden rant calling on people to expose the Judge’s personal information. “This guy has it … coming to him,” he said. Another YouTube user, “InsaneClownPerv,” posted a scary rant that includes a bitter message scrolled across the screen in red letters while hip-hop music played in the background.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 06, 2008 (boomark / email).