Mood:  not sure

I'm getting a little creeped out of my skin reading the BBC article on the Viacom vs Google case currently being contested.  YouTube has been brought under fire in the past for allowing users to upload copyritten material and managed to come out of it ok.  Now that Google owns YouTube, it looks like the court cases will begin again.  Anyway, I fail to see why user viewing habits, IP addresses, usernames and passwords need to be known by Viacom though.  They say its to prove that illicit material is more popular (any child psychologist could verify its probably true), but what does that matter any way.  If the crux of their case is that their property is being uploaded and viewed on YouTube, it shouldn't matter how many or which individuals view it.  And really, all videos on YouTube have a tag on how many times the video has been viewed--pulling the info with no personal information should be easy.  That the court ruled in favor of surrendering personal user information has got me cooking up paranoid future scenarios for what the info will be used for in the future.  From the article:  

"Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled.

The ruling comes as part of Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement."

"The viewing log, which will be handed to Viacom, contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details."

I believe strongly that intellectual property should be protected, and that the freedom of its discrimination should be in the hands of its creator, and then secondly its owner in other fashions.  I find it interesting however that issues of copyright and ownership have so successfully violated personal privacy.  Where is the line to be drawn between what is evidence of intellectual property theft and what is theft in order to get evidence?  More and more it seems like the citizen gets the short straw in favor of corporations and agencies who can shove more money into powerful pockets. 

What are our courts doing with themselves and our rights lately anway?  Where is our privacy going and why is the access to that information being given to non government corporations without government mediation?  Recently Bush made the move to hold harmless phone companies for illegal wire tapping, and the House passed a bill to allow the RIAA to take your property(and all the info on it probably).  At least in 1984, our rights to privacy were being pillaged by the government, here and now they're being pillaged by the companies from whom we buy our goods and services.  Who exactly is running this country anyway?