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A year ago Viacom had a wall-eyed fit about content on YouTube, claiming copyright infringement. The initial suit asked for a billion dollars.

Now Viacom is about to be handed the user information of everyone who has viewed a video on YouTube, let alone posted one? That can’t be right - can it?

Doesn’t seem right, does it? And one wonders if Google had simply settled last year if they would now be humiliated and forced to hand over personal user data.

There are a myriad of issues at work here. From the beginning, Google tried to have the suit dismissed on the basis that it inhibited free speech, and Viacom countered that copyright infringement is not covered under free speech.

Kind of have to agree with Viacom on that one… but really, what are we talking about here? A few thousand clips from MTV or the Daily Show with Jon Stewart seems more like free advertising to me…

And if we are going to crack down on copyright infringers, shouldn’t Viacom just get access to the user logs of the posters? I mean, I went and looked at the South Park clip about Scientology - well, I tried. It now says:

“This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.”

Obviously, problem solved - for that clip, anyway. But will Viacom come banging on my door now? “Excuse me, you’ll have to come with us…we noticed you logged in and attempted to view a video in violation of copyright today…”

Google is willing to hand over user records, but not YouTube source code. This kind of ticks me off.

Now I am not a huge fan of YouTube (I tried it a few times and emerged several hours later, reeling and laughing my head off to find the day wasted and my sense of humor dangerously warped), but I can see where there needs to be some checks and balances to protect copyrights.

I do not agree that handing over user data is the way to rectify the problem. Google should make more of a stand for user privacy, but they seem more concerned about their own issues than those of their consumers.

In the meantime, their team of specialists keeps assuring us that the information they will be releasing is simply the user logs with the IP addresses, and nothing can be deduced about the users from that type of data.

Then what does Viacom want it for? That’s what bothers me.