hmmm, that's a nasty precedent.

So now they get to know that I watching giggling scandanavian babies, gay Israeli pop stars on the beach, and stories about Ligers?

Crap.

Dare we wonder of Senator Obama feels about this turn of events?

Why do they want to know this information? Are they going to send me a bill for every time I watched A Daily Show, Colbert Report, or South Park clip?

HOW. *How* Senator Obama blah blah blah...

I've always assumed that YouTube doesn't host copyright-infringing material, so I felt safe watching content there. Well, safe except for that whole Rick-rolling thing...

Good thing that Canadians can insist under NAFTA on their Constitutional right to privacy ... too bad we don't have any in the USA, though.

The inanity of most of the videos I watched would be an embarassment to me if word got out. (Flight of the Bumblebee singing dad anyone? Anyone?)

And @4 I'd better start saving up now if Viacom intends to charge for views of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report while they were up there, because I watched most of them.

Interesting. I'm not sure what this would mean to anyone but the host, and the person posting materials. Streaming data doesn't actually exist in the possession of a person, or at least DRM contracts seem to think that's the case.

Also, "the judge required Google to turn over to Viacom the login name of every user who watched it" is a curious tidbit. Login and password to what? You don't need a YouTube account to view content there, or on Google.

It makes me think that the solution to skirting copyright law online is just to make up some goofy tech terms to fuddy-duddy old judges who don't understand technology.
"Your honor, my client had no way of downloading those videos, as the record will show, he was out of node tokens during the entire month."
"You're free to go."

Shit, I'm holding. Anybody want some node tokens? I can't be seen with these.

One could always argue they were just looking for porn and just happened to stumble across that SNL clip. After all, no one would purposely seek out an SNL sketch from the last 4-5 years, right?..Right?

Pre-emptive strike against Big Brother: Okay, okay, I once watched a YouTube video of a dog being fed peanut butter. Waddya gonna do, throw be in Guantanamo?

I think I've got old style internet tubes, because most of my node tokens end up getting stuck in them.

Oh shit! Now the world will know how many times I watched that old KFC commercial with Magic Johnson in it! The framers are rolling in their graves.

ps. Whats a brother gotta do to get some more Yacht Rock up in this mug?

ME. Throw *me* in Guantanablah blah blah...

all your youtubes belongs to us!

I watched that Miss South Carolina video like a hundred times. I'm doomed. Such as.

I used all my node tokens on shipping wood through the tubes.

Like most USA Americans.

I assume that the "ways to ensure the data is further protected" will include the usual "stored on a laptop accidentally left behind in a restaurant" and "available for free download on Russian mob websites within hours".

The sheer amount of people using Youtube and the amount of videos they have watched over the entire existence of Youtube? They would need millions of people to sort through the data to find anything. 99% of the data would be useless fodder for them.

Videos on Youtube in Viacom's copyright probably don't amount to 0.01% of the entire library of Youtube. Why Viacom would want data on everyone, everywhere is confusing. Do they want to become a private NSA company?