• “i think u should ask the viewers before u make your choice. please do that … =]”
• “support this video against the mandatory changes – http://www.youtube.com/wat…”
• “Please allow the choice of both old and new channel designs.”

… as well as full blown ASCII protest art.

Here’s a video that describes all the cool {as per youtube} features of  the new layout!!

Wanna try it? The first 100 people to say “Yes! Sign me up” in the comments @ YouTube India Blog will get an exclusive invite to test it out. Please keep in mind that you will need to have friends on YouTube for this to work — the more you have, the richer the experience, so be sure you accept friend invites and actively manage the list. Participants can enter feedback on RealTime in the forums or in comments @ YouTube India Blog

In this lawsuit, Viacom is seeking more than $1 billion in damages because of alleged copyright violations on YouTube.

Besides this user data, Viacom also sought access to Google’s source code for its web and video search, as well as for its ‘Video ID’ program. The judge, however, denied access to the code, because, “considered against its value and secrecy, plaintiffs have not made a sufficient showing of need for its disclosure.” It’s interesting that Google’s trade secrets are worth protecting while the privacy of users is not.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that this ruling is in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPAA), which forbids the disclosure of personally identifiable rental data without a consumer’s consent. The EFF argues that because some users on YouTube used the full names as login names, the VPAA applies to YouTube.

Mark Cuban also has an interesting take on this story. He argues that the data Google now has to release might show that Google actively removes pornographic content from YouTube, which would then lead Google to lose its DMCA protection.

For a lot of users, the question is going to be what Viacom will do with all this data . Are they planning to sue individual users as well as Google? To substantiate its claims against Google, Viacom doesn’t really need to be able to identify individual users.

Update: For now, it seems that Viacom is restricted to using the data solely to prove its copyright claims.

[source]

[Source]

Finally, we have some answers. Today we’re releasing YouTube Insight, a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload to the site. For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time. You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks.

How does this help you? Well, using these metrics, you can increase your videos’ view counts and improve your popularity on the site. For instance, you might learn that your videos are most popular on Wednesdays, that you have a huge following in Spain, or that new videos that play off previous content become more popular more quickly. With this information, you can concentrate on creating compelling new content that appeals to your target audiences, and post these videos on days you know these viewers are on the site. (Maybe even post your next video in Spanish?) And for those of you who are also partners, the more popular a video is, the more advertising revenue it can generate.

We’ll be making new features and additional information available fairly quickly — like a specific breakdown of how viewers discovered the video — so keep an eye out as we roll out new features. As for now, you can find currently available metrics by clicking under the “About this Video” button under “My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos.”

Here’s an example of video that’s available both in the regular version (320×240) and in a higher quality encoding (448×336). The audio is now encoded at a sample rate of 44100 Hz, up from 22050 Hz. As you can see in the screenshots below, the right image is clearer and more detailed.

MORE… 

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 domestic Internet service providers to restore access to the site after removal of what government officials had deemed a “blasphemous” video clip.

Pakistan ordered YouTube blocked on Friday over a clip featuring a Dutch lawmaker who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence. As a result, most of the world’s Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours on Sunday.

An Internet expert said Sunday’s problems came after a Pakistani telecommunications company complied with the block by directing requests for YouTube videos to a “black hole.” So instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

MORE… 

Popular video-sharing Web site YouTube has been banned once again — this time round by Pakistan.

According to an Associated Press (AP) report, access to the Web site has been banned following anti-Islamic movies posted on the site by some users.

All 70 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been notified by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) — of YouTube having been blocked until further notice.

A PTA official (who did not wish to be named) was quoted by AP as saying that the ban concerns a trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker, Geert Wilders, which allegedly portrays the Islamic religion as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals. The PTA is also known to block Web sites for showing controversial drawings of Prophet Muhammad, the official revealed.

Web users have been urged by the PTA to write-in to YouTube, requesting the Web site to remove the objectionable movie clips, on condition that if and once this happens, Pak authorities will stop blocking YouTube.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is certainly not the first country to have banned YouTube.
Last year, Thailand imposed an almost four-month ban on the site because of video clips deemed offensive to the country’s most revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Also last year, Morocco banned YouTube after users posted videos considered critical of Morocco’s treatment of the people of Western Sahara. Incidentally, Morocco took control over Western Sahara in 1975.

The latest instance is of Turkey having banned the site in January this year after users posted video clips deemed insulting to the country’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. In Turkey, it’s against the law to insult Ataturk.

And coming back to the Pak ban on YouTube, the incident is now being connected to a near-global YouTube blackout on Sunday. BBC News has reported that the nearly two-hour YouTube blackout (global) was almost certainly connected to Pakistan Telecom and Internet Service Provider PCCW.

BBC News Technology Editor, Darren Waters, went on to say that to block Pakistani citizens from accessing YouTube, Pakistan Telecom was believed to have ‘hijacked’ the Web server address of YouTube. However, details of this ‘hijack’ leaked out into the wider Internet from PCCW resulting in YouTube being blocked by Internet Service Providers not only in Pakistan but around the world. When YouTube engineer’s informed PCCW about this, the block on the servers was lifted.

No wonder an angry Google lashed out at Pakistan, blaming the outage on “erroneous Internet protocols” sourced in Pakistan. The company issued a statement saying that the problem lasted for about two hours, and that traffic to YouTube was routed according to erroneous Internet protocols, and that many users around the world could not access YouTube. The statement said “users are quite upset and are screaming at ISPs who can’t do anything”.