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How odd is this? Google, which makes a bit of coin by making anything and everything available through its search engine to anyone and everyone, would prefer a little privacy when that information is about itself. Google has asked a federal court to keep sealed documents filed in the case between it (as owner of YouTube) and Viacom for another month.
Google’s request comes on the heels of Viacom’s asking for the records to be unsealed right away. Unsealed means the records will be publicly accessible--the ‘down and dirty’ of the Google/YouTube-Viacom battle can at last be revealed. According to Viacom, and entertainment lawyer Ben Sheffner, law requires that records, save for trade secrets, be unsealed once summary judgment has been filed for. Google, on the other hand, envisions a nightmare of inefficiency in processing the records, which might impede Google’s final arguments in the case.
What’s in the records is anyone’s guess. Some are hopeful there’ll be more embarrassing admissions, such as Google emails that indicate YouTube managers were uploading or condoning the presence of copyrighted material on YouTube. Or Viacom’s, where employees purposely uploaded Viacom content to YouTube to promote Viacom’s product.
If such things do exist in these records it will take a while to find out. During the three year battle hundreds of thousands of pages of information have been exchanged. It’ll take a while to shift through it all once its released--whether that’s now, as Viacom as requested, or in June, when Google prefers.
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