YouTube has had a lot of trouble when it comes to  copyright infringement.  Many go on YouTube, not for content related to video blogs or dramatic chipmunks, but for clips from the Daily Show, Colbert Report, Scrubs,  Burn Notice, and other popular TV shows and movies.  Recently, a U.S. court ordered that YouTube's owner, Google, to hand over records for each video watched to media powerhouse Viacom.

So what does that mean?  This means that any video you watch will note your IP address, and your YouTube account name if you are using it, and what video you watch.

So what?  IP addresses can be reset, and I don't really need my YouTube account.  For one thing, not many people know how to reset their IP addresses, yours truly included.  Also, some say it's not that hard to trace the data back to a specific user.

So is YouTube safe?  Right now, it's kinda hard to tell.  Tthis ruling was fairly recent, so what Viacom does with the data is up in the air.  But if people start getting sued for thousands of dollars, like they do for illegal downloads, then we'll know. 

Any advice?  Well, you can do a few things.  First off, Firefox has some add-ons that can hide your IP address. Tor-Proxy.NET Toolbar (LINK) is one example of this.  You can also lessen the amount of videos you watch while you are on your YouTube account (they get recorded).  This doesn't mean that your YouTube account is worthless; you can still use it to watch subscriptions to non-copyrighted material.

What's your opinion on this? (Like I actually care.)  Thanks for asking!  Personally, this is another step towards an invasion of privacy.  I'm not going to rant about the police state, but this isn't a good thing.  Viacom could have just gotten reparations (Google's worth a shitload), but I think they took it a step too far.

Here's a link to a CNN article talking more about this issue:LINK

Happy July 4th everybody. =)