A court has ruled that Google must turn over logs containing the “log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details” of every single video watched by every user on YouTube. This is the result of a class action copyright infringement lawsuit, brought against the video sharing site by Viacom (parent company of MTV, VH1, CBS and Paramount) and the Premier League football association. Google will also be required to “disclose to Viacom the details of all videos that have been removed from the site for any reason.”

So what does this mean, beyond the fact that multi-national corporations will now have evidence every time you watch semi-dirty Duran Duran videos or footage of Margaret Thatcher asking the media to “rejoice” that British troops have taken back the Falklands (yes, these are my two most recent YouTube searches)? The BBC has posted a good decoding of the ruling. Takeaways after the jump.

• Viacom says it wants the logs in order to “compare the attractiveness” of original videos with those that violate a copyright––basically, they want to prove that illegal sharing of copyright material accounts for the largest chunk of YouTube’s traffic.
• The logs will give Viacom access to information about every video ever watched on YouTube, on any date, in any part of the worlds.
• The conglomerate (and presumably, others who may be able to gain access to the logs in the wake of this verdict) will not automatically have access to your full name and other personal information like access and age, but theoretically, through a combination of your user ID and IP address, someone may be able to obtain that information through your ISP if they really wanted to.
• That said, Viacom has not suggested that they want to––this lawsuit does not seem to be about persecuting/prosecuting individual consumers of copyright material, but about taking away YouTube’s ability to distribute materials that violate copyright in the first place.
• Google will almost certainly appeal the decision, with the PR support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.