Roger that.
What I’m confused about here is that the viewer does not download the file, like they would an MPG via file sharing. I know there’s third party aps. that allow it, but as a rule, the clips are streamed. There’s no transfer of data. So, any “infringement” rests on the original uploader, and YouTube, not the file viewer.
So why would they want a “viewer log”.
MPG=MP3
According to the article, "Viacom said it wanted the data to 'compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing videos.'"
Which seems silly -- there are other ways to get that information. Their actual motives are undoubtedly different. For instance, they may see it as a way to cost YouTube viewers and money.
They supposedly don’t care about each individual. What they want to do is compare the viewing habits of all the individuals. They want to be able to show how many times their stuff was viewed, and also compare the relative number of views for their stuff vs other stuff.
What they want to show is how many people google allowed to view their copyrighted material, probably so they can claim a per-view fee. And they want to show that a substantial number of views were for copyrighted material, to suggest that 30% of google’s business (for example) was directly derived from Viacom’s property.
The purpose there I presume is to claim that percentage of Googles total ad revenue, plus damages.
They want to show that Google is personally benefitting from allowing the Viacom copyrighted material.
One thing is pretty much undisputed — there was a LOT of copyrighted material put on YouTube.
Bingo.