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The YouTube Logs, Viacom, Lawsuits and yes - Embeds.

It has come to our all attention that Google is being sued by Viacom (MTV etc.) for copyright infringement and the using habits of all people ever watching a youtube video will be part of that lawsuit and google has to comply. Now privacy issues aside there will be another highly interesting aspect of this court battle to watch: embeds.
Yes I know I have promised a lengthy article or podcast about the whole "how embeds fall into copyright or not" issue. The reason why I still not have done so is that even after over a month of research I have no 100% answer to this very question and the reason I have no answer is that there is none out there it seems (I still have two option left for research). Now this lawsuit is wanting damages for each and all views of copyrighted material and this includes embeds. Now its a funny situation (not so funny actually) because if google looses the first round of the suit (so its found they are infringing copyright) then they will try to keep the damage to a minimum and that would mean that they try to push the embed button. Meaning Google would argue that those who embeded a youtube video are on their own when it comes to copyright and they are only liable when it comes to content on their site. Its the logical way out and would set the record straight.
I will be watching this closely.
Quite generally this lawsuit is worst that can happen to the net as whole and I sincerely hope Google has an ace up their sleeve. Not only is the privacy issue involved with all this data a can of worms also the whole music industries grip on the net would grow tremendously if they win this (an you better check if you have any infringing loop on your site - youtube or not - because thats going to be their next target).
I predict some secret out of court negotiations and google handing over some large swathes of cash and nothing gets resolved in the end for the whole net.

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