Google Removes Kazaa Links, Keeps Sponsored Links

SanityInAnarchy writes "Everyone should remember when Google removed several links that Sharman (owner of Kazaa) claimed were infringing their copyrights. At first, only real results were touched and sponsored links left alone. Well, that sponsored link was removed, but there are quite a few left on a search for 'Kazaa Lite' that, if they aren't infringing Kazaa copyrights, openly advocate piracy. Well, maybe not quite, but I still can't believe they expect that phrases like 'complete albums,' 'full-length movies,' and 'Napster lives' are to be interpreted as '100% legal.'"

Comments

i noticed this too

[fuckfuck101]

and it's still not hard to find links with kazaa lite, or anything to do with illegal nature.

a far more pressing issue for me is why doesn't google remove links for "kiddie porn" or "illegal porn" or "rape pics" or something?

or is it a case of one rule for one, another for everybody else?

Re:i noticed this too

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

and it's still not hard to find links with kazaa lite, or anything to do with illegal nature.
< snip >
or is it a case of one rule for one, another for everybody else?

This is precisely why they shouldn't filter out any search results. If they filter only some some "illegal" (keep in mind that legality is a function of locality) links, they are, in effect, endorsing the others. Your sacred cow may not be mine, and everyone's kink is someone else's horror.

Search engines merely provide a searchable index to content. I don't see how they can be seen as guilty of copyright infringement, so long as the page descriptions are kept short enough to qualify under "fair use". An impartial tool like a search engine is not a place to enforce morality, since morality is subjective by its very nature.

I should close by saying that I don't personally condone the examples you've given, but the people involved in the creating of that content are the wrongdoers, not Google.

Legal trends against google?

[zapp]

It seems that there's been a trend lately for blaming a search engine for what can be found using its services. It is not google's responsibility to maintain the content of the Internet.

If i search google for "Child pornography" ... it is not their fault if some comes up.

If I search for mp3s or full movie rips, its not their fault. They are an indexing service, not a filtering service, nor a content provider.

blah people are stupid.

I can't believe people haven't attacked this guy.

[I'm a racist.]

The submitter of this article seems to be a bit of an asshole.

I still can't believe they expect that phrases like 'complete albums,' 'full-length movies,' and 'Napster lives' are to be interpreted as '100% legal.

Might I refer you to the first ammendment?

Google pulled a fast on on the RIAA

[m.dillon]

You guys are idiots. Google pulled the links, but they also put a link up to the original DMCA notice that was sent to them which... guess what? LISTS THE BANNED SITES!

So now instead of these sites being deep in the list of results, they are now front and center, and probably getting far more hits then they were before the notice was sent.

Re:Google: "Don't be evil"

[Snowspinner]

They didn't remove hate across the board. They removed it in Germany, which has extremely strict hate speech laws, which Google was probably running afoul of.

Nor did they say anything about copyright infringement being wrong. They complied with a DMCA request. The DMCA being the evil thing that it is, they were, quite likely, in violation of it.

In other words, both cases were not Google being evil, they were the law being evil. Google is not the legislative body in either the US or Germany, so that's not really their fault.

Leave search engines out of this

[gad_zuki!]

This is like demanding Enron being removed from the yellowpages. Control search engines and you control the net I guess, this is one of the bigger problems of the DMCA. Linking should not be illegal regardless of the site.

Let them fight their battles, but leave unaffiliated third-parties out of it. Google has nothing to do with kazaalite, google has nothing to do with scientology, etc. You would think a GOP administration would defend business like google and free speech, but the DMCA has yet to be challenged and Ashcroft has no problem using it for his own end.

I don't want a goverment sanitized search engine, I want the rawest information I can get.