Google said it had now agreed to provide lawyers for Viacom and a class-action group led by the Football Association of England, a large viewership database that blanks out YouTube username and Internet address data that could be used to identify individual video watchers.

The parties are still working towards a separate agreement concerning YouTube employee data, an issue I wrote about yesterday.

Viacom wants to know which videos YouTube employees have watched and uploaded to the site, and Google is refusing to provide that information, CNET News has learned.

This dispute is the reason the two companies, and lawyers representing a group of other copyright holders suing Google, have failed to reach a final agreement on anonymizing personal information belonging to YouTube users, according to two sources close to the situation.

From a discovery standpoint, I’m not sure what Google’s rationale might be for refusing to hand over employee data.  If anything, as the CNet article points out, employee data might be highly relevant to Viacom’s claims and detrimental to Google’s DMCA safe harbor defense.  What did the employees do?  Did they upload infringing videos?  Did they have actual knowledge of infringement?

In any case, this underscores why it’s a bad idea to leave privacy protections to those who profit from gathering our data.  It also makes Google seem to be more protective of its employees than of the public.  As TechCrunch put it today:

Google’s self imposed code of conduct is “Don’t be evil.”  It doesn’t say “don’t be evil unless there’s important litigation at stake.”  Google’s reputation is on the line, and how they respond will show their true character.  They’ve shown they’ll go to bat for employees, now it’s time for them to show they’ll go to bat for their users.

Hat tip: Gigalaw.

Plaintiff has a great deal to say,
But it seems he skipped Rule 8(a),
His Complaint is too long,
Which renders it wrong,
Please re-write and re-file today.

Hat tip to my St. Thomas colleague Fred Light for sending this to me.

The order raised concerns among users and privacy advocates that the online video viewing habits of hundreds tens of millions of people could be exposed.  But Google and Viacom said they were working to hoping to come up with a way to protect the anonymity of YouTube viewers., and

Viacom said that the information would be safeguarded by a protective order restricting access to the data to outside advisors, who will use it solely to press Viacom’s $1 billion copyright suit against Google.

It’s good that some steps are being taken to limit the use of the information.  But why is Google collecting and retaining so much information? Maybe there’s business value in keeping it, but there’s also business value in not angering hundreds tens of millions of users.  Google’s apparent taste for data retention risks a well-deserved loss of goodwill.  (Or considering people’s wayward attitudes towards privacy, perhaps not.)  I recognize that some information must be retained for a variety of reasons.  But the more unnecessary information you keep, the more likely somebody you didn’t envision — a wayward employee, a hacker, or even worse, an adverse litigant — will find a use for it you didn’t want.

The court’s order can be found here.

ADDENDUM: The Times has revised the text of the quoted portion of the article from when I viewed it earlier.  I’ve indicated appropriate changes above.

NOTE (JULY 13): See here for updates.

The defendants’ names? Limerick Golf Club, Inc. and Limerick Golf Club Estates, Inc. (collectively, “Limerick”).  Concluding that Limerick didn’t justify the late filing, Judge Berle M. Schiller dismissed their third-party complaint.  Stating that Limerick’s “sub-par performance occurred in the pleading stage of this case and not on the golf course,” the court closed with a rhyme:

With arguments hard to resist,
The movant correctly insists,
His joinder was tardy,
And so the third party
Complaint is hereby dismissed.

Hat tip to Law.com for the story and where you can find additional details on the suit.  Court’s opinion here.

In a copyright opinion issued last Friday, Judge Selya opined that a party’s counterclaims “assert[ed] copyright infringement and a gallimaufry of other federal and state-law causes of action. ” (Emphasis added.)

Gallimaufry.  Merriam-Webster Online states that it’s of Middle French origin and means “hodgepodge.”  In the context of pleading, what a wonderful word.  Of course, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were intended to permit liberal joinder of claims and defenses. Thus, the Rules (such as Rules 8 and 18) were designed with hodgepodgery in mind, subject to limits such as those in Rule 11. Thus, to an extent, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are Federal Rules of Gallimaufry.

New Year’s Resolution: catching up on my blogging. Along those lines, my St. Thomas colleague Fred Light brought to my attention last term to an interesting administrative order from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The order, entitled In re: Cellular Phone and Electronic Equipment Usage in the Courthouse, addresses legitimate concerns over the presence and use of cell phones — and particularly camera phones — in the courtroom. It designates persons who can bring cell or camera phones to court but warns that “[n]o cellular phones of any kind may be used in a courtroom or jury deliberations room and no photographs of any kind may be taken in any federal courthouse facility.” Penalties for violations include 30 days in jail and/or a fine of $5000 and/or punishment for contempt of court.

Woe to the first person in a Miami courtroom whose Motorola Razr blares out Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida as a ringtone.

Thanks to dreamingyakker at Flickr, who licensed the photo through this Creative Commons license.