This is the case, long awaited, between Viacom and YouTube.  In this case, Viacom makes a number of requests compelling YouTube to release information as well as media and content.  While there are eight motions, they are not all granted; five are denied.  This is interesting, as we must note the reasoning behind Judge Louis L. Stranton’s decisions on July 1, 2008.
    In favor of YouTube, the motion to compel production of search code is denied, and the cross motion for a protective order of the source code is granted.  This is based on the reasoning that such a disclosure would expose a trade secret (that costs thousands of man hours) and that there is no evidence that such a tool could even filter out infringing videos.  The motion to compel production of the source code for the Video ID program is also denied on the grounds that it is also a trade secret and Viacom doesn’t make a significant showing of need.  Also, YouTube claims that they could figure it out by using it.  Judge Stranton does grant the motion to compel production of all removed videos.  Viacom claims that access to all of these files is necessary to identify any infringing videos (but burden of such a task lies on Viacom).   It is also granted that YouTube produce all data from Logging databases concerning each time a video is viewed on the website or on a third-party website.  This passes because of the insufficiency of an IP address to identify personal information.  The motion to compel production of all those data fields which defendants have agreed to produce for works-in-suit, for all videos that have been posted to the YouTube website is denied because “No sufficiently compelling need is shown to justify the analysis of “millions of pieces of information” sought
by this request.”  He also denies the motion to compel production of the schema for Google Advertising databases, but grants for the schema regarding the Google Video Content database.  This is because the plaintiffs have already been promised the only relevant data in the database, they do not need Google’s confidential map of how it runs its advertising business.  Viacom is also denied the ability to access all private videos, except the data related to these videos that is not the actual content.  
    This is essentially the main case that I will use as an example in my paper in determining whether or not YouTube’s business violates copyright laws.  I hope to explore my other sources as well to see if there are any rulings that I do not agree with.  It is important to note that the Judge’s decision is not to shut down YouTube, but to assure that any infringement is addressed, while maintaining YouTube’s ability to function as a unique video sharing network.

    This study was conducted in 2006 by Jennifer M. Urban and Lauren Quilter, surveying the effects of Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act on the Internet.  The two used an empirical approach to look at the notice and takedown landscape, and collected data about the number and type of notices that were sent in recent years.  Google provided all the notices the company had received between 2002 and 2005 (constituting the majority of the data), with non-trivial supplements coming from the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.  The researchers were careful to point out a variety of issues with the data set, including a potential bias in the Chilling Effect notices, since these were self-reported cases.  The Google information also is flawed to a degree, since notices sent to a search engine like Google are not necessarily emblematic of the entire notice and takedown climate.  This is displayed by a discrepancy between the data and common perception, with music and movie companies accounting for few of the takedown notices, since they find it more useful sending takedown notices to non-search engines.  Acknowledging the need for additional data and further research, the study concluded that there a large number of claims had serious substantive questions.  While anticipating some notices to be unjustifiable, the high number of problematic notices that were found was “particularly troubling.”  Since the researchers used a high threshold of what would be considered questionable (choosing to use cases where fair use only could likely be used as a proper defense) the results are even more severe than first appear.  Even so, enough claims were made without sufficient justification or sometimes without any at all (claims regarding material which are not subject to copyright) for the study to conclude that the “implications for expression on the Internet of this extrajudicial process appear, from our limited data, significant.”
    This is going to be very helpful in my paper, since it will be one of the few but important statistical analyses I use.  Many of the other works are theoretical expositions by professors and academics, citing specific cases and expanding out the reasoning to apply to more generic cases.  However, this study uses nearly 1,000 data points to arrive at its significant conclusions that will aid me in my argument.  Most importantly, I will reference the high rate of improper claims, representing the low barrier to entry to submit even a fraudulent claim, and its negative impact on free speech on the internet.