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What the Pirate Bay Verdict Could Mean For Google
explosivejared writes "Forbes is running a story discussing the verdict in the Pirate Bay case and its implications on file sharing, specifically with regard to Google. The article points out what most people on Slashdot already realize: Google provides essentially the same service that the Pirate Bay does. The Pirate Bay case may be far from over, accounting for appeals, but the Pirate Bay's assumption of being unchallengeable was shattered. The article raises the question of whether or not Google is untouchable in the matter. The story is quick to point out how the situation resembles a futile game of cat-and-mouse, but given how the Pirate Bay's confidence was ultimately broken, is Google beyond reproach?"
..both TPB and Google will eventually be able to rely on the same protection as ISPs. They are neutral carriers of information and therefore should, in law, be held harmless. The Pirate Bays difficulties are that publically they try to deliberately convey an air of behaving unlawfully and dangerously to attract attention. I think the Swedish court bit on this too much, rather than the actual evidence and law. From what I can tell, the legal abilities of the primary Swedish courts don't appear to be too good; previous judgements against Pirate Bay have routinely been overturned on appeal, and I suspect this one will be no different.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
The verdict explicitly addresses this point and states that due to TPB running the tracker and thus being intimately involved in the sharing of copyrighted material any comparison with Google is false. They were not convicted because TPB is hosting a bunch of torrent files, they were convicted because they were running a tracker.
Everything not specifically released into the public domain that is indexed by Google is copyrighted.
That would probably be more than 99.99% of the internet.
What on Earth would make you think that a legal case in Sweden would have that effect? What do you imagine Google would pay for? To whom? Why Google, and not the downloader?
I don't think what you're saying is remotely realistic.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Google can afford billion dollar lawyers.
Google is unaffected by this meaningless verdict. The cartels sued four mostly political figures who had no money to defend themselves, and won despite a theatrics worthy of My Cousin Vinnie. This whole ordeal was more of a social media stunt than any realistic legal matter, and by that measure it is a great success, as people everywhere are panicking over the outcome.
Google, on the other hand, is a giant corporation with billions of dollars, filled with many bright minds and, I'm sure, armed with the world's top lawyers. They are no strangers to the copyright issues. Were the MAFIAA to go after Google, they would be facing a very different battle, one they could actually lose, because Google has ample resources to not only put up a real fight, but also lay the groundwork for copyright reform, should the verdict land in Google's favor, with the fruits of that effort trickling down to torrent trackers and any other content indexes.
It's quite simple, really: You don't fuck with Google, because Google fucks back.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
1. TPB exists primarily to facilitate copyright violation. Google is a common carrier.
2. TPB hosts the BitTorrent tracker files. Google does not.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
This is completely incorrect. Until the appeal has been determined in the case in years, this thing is still in legal limbo. Even new cases will "await the appeal decision".
Thus, this means nothing. The appeal will be everything, as was expected in the first place. All we have is a case of bad reporting/moral panic by forbes.
Look, there'a a huge difference between Google and TPB. It's willfully obtuse to pretend there isn't.
1) Google crawls the Internet and indexes content for searching. It presents search results in the form of hyperlinks to the sites of the people providing the content (exactly the way the WWW was intended to work). Yeah yeah, there is Google Cache, Google News, and Youtube, which occasionally gets them into trouble, but they make efforts to carefully remain within the realm of fair use, including removing copyrighted material from Youtube. One could argue that the WWW would not be able to function without search engines like Google.
TPB, on the other hand, is a website that contains a user-editable index of torrent files people are willing to share. In other words, TPB doesn't crawl for general content that is already publicly available. TPB then facilitates the transactions between users by functioning as a tracker. Torrents are useless without a tracker, so this is a critical difference. Google would not be able to provide the same service as TPB. Yes, you can find torrents via Google, but that is because Google has indexed a tracker like TPB and is just linking to their site.
2) Most of the content accessible through Google is legal, in the sense that the people who own the copyright have shared it explicitly on their website, which is crawled by Google. Most of the content on TPB is not legal, in the sense that the people sharing the files do not own the copyright and are not within the realm of fair use.
3) The content in both Google's search index and TPB's website is trivial to update to remove content that is in violation of copyright. Google willingly does so, usually at the notice of copyright holders. Google also removes content they don't necessarily have to, like Google Streetview images, when requested. TPB consistently refuses to remove content brought to its attention, and often responds with rude, immature, and insulting remarks.
Everybody stop pretending Google and TPB provide the same service. They just don't. Period.
Well hey guys, you could have gotten away with it if your fucking name wasn't The PIRATE Bay..
And that would have made everything OK? Getting away with it?
Isn't that exactly what RIAA's and their lobbyists are doing? Getting away with it.
To quote another slashdotter, quoting Martin Luther King:
From Letters from a Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King, Jr:
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
"Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law."
" One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."
Stay strong, guys.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
they've never cooperated with the countless photographers claiming copyright infringement through their Google Images service
Sure they have. It's called "robots.txt" - and a photographer publishing their works on a web site simply has to ask Google not to index them. And they won't. They'll also lose the potential exposure, but that's a choice.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
A crow bar is not illegal. I can buy one for as little as $5-$10. It's very useful in construction and demolitions.
But a crow bar can be a terribly violent weapon. Ever banged your shin with one? It would take just a good swing or two to commit murder.
In many jurisdictions, there are laws having to do with "brandishing a weapon", typically in a threatening manner. I can carry a crow bar all day long at a construction site, and nobody would care. If I carried the same crowbar into a fine restaurant, things would be markedly different. If I sold a crowbar to a kid who wanted to help his dad work on the garage, I'd be a nice guy. If I sold the same crowbar to a kid who wanted to off his ex-girlfriend's boyfriend, I could easily be an accessory to murder.
Intent matters. It's not the tool, it's the act!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I think if Google where to start removing links to copyrighted content other than as required by the law, it would very soon cease being the world favorite search engine.
Can you imagine the outcry on here and Geekdom in general if Google decided to censor results in this way? I'm pretty sure some other search engine would appear without these restrictions and quickly become all computer geeks new baby. I'm also sure the Google is shewed enough to realize this.
N.B. this user is far too lazy to write a witty and intelligent sig.
Maybe being called "The Pirate Bay" and having a picture of a pirates ship as a logo... I dunno... maybe it wasn't such a great move? If they'd called the site "Super Swedish Torrents" or something, and maybe avoided anything that gave the slightest hint the the site was intended for downloading copyrighted material, then *maybe* their case would've been stronger.
On a related note, if the difference between Google and TPB is their "intent", then wouldn't Google be guilty anyway because they link to TPB? Or does the whole guilt thing only work when it's a one-hop-link?!