Big Media Wants More Piracy Busting From Google

suraj.sun writes "Last month, executives from two music-industry trade groups, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), asked Google if it could provide a means to help them track down pirated material more efficiently. Typically, copyright owners are responsible for finding pirated links and alerting Google, which is required by law to quickly remove the links. But Google's response raised eyebrows at some of the labels. James Pond, a Google manager, wrote in a letter dated September 20, that Google would be happy to help — for a price."

Comments

Well duh

[Arancaytar]

It's only evil if you're not getting paid for it.

Re:Well duh

[Trufagus]

You might want to read the article and think about it for a second before posting.

If Google does what is being asked of them then they have to give in to China too, and where does it stop.

I thought that Google's way of telling the labels to go away was appropriate.

Re:Well duh

[LordLimecat]

Am I understanding your drift right-- you think it is Google's responsibility to shoulder the burden of searching for pirated music, for free?? While we're at it, why shouldnt local police departments everywhere just ask Google to host a few virtual servers for them, free of charge? I mean, Google is against crime, right?

Re:Well duh

[cheekyjohnson]

"So your argument is that identifying people who are pirating music is... evil?"

Identifying them? No. Claiming that they're stealing something or hurting someone? Yes.

Re:Well duh

[bzipitidoo]

Want has nothing to do with it. Data, including music, is inherently free. No deal with Google or any other business, nor any law is going to change that.

Anyone can potentially commit millions in copyright infringement in under a minute by simply giving a thumbdrive loaded with music to another individual. There is no practical way for 3rd parties to know of that, let alone prevent it. No evidence to cover up.

The industry can still get people for public uses. But chasing down individuals is hopeless. Except for those few lives messed up, it's amusing watching them try. Google surely understands this, so perhaps asking for money is their way of disingenuously saying no. The cartels should stop making such stupid demands. As it is, Google is being squeezed. If they outright refuse, they get sued. So they have to tread carefully, and give the cartels something reasonable that forces them to realize that they're asking the impossible. This is something the cartels won't be able to do much with, and they will have a hard time blaming Google for not being more cooperative. It would be better if we could stop pussyfooting around, and just laugh the cartels off.

Re:Well duh

[Pharmboy]

If you don't like the way it is, (I guess you want music to be inherently free?)

I don't pirate music, I just don't want commercial businesses actively involved in policing copyrights. It is that simple.

Re:Well duh

[Ash Vince]

It's only evil if you're not getting paid for it.

Helping companies track down people depriving them of legitimate revenue is not really evil is it? I produce something, I should be able to get paid for it. If you do not want to pay for it: fine, do not use it then.

I think the RIAA's tactics stink. I think some of the law firms going round issuing threats to sue just as money making scheme are even worse.

I do however think that if I produce a product that I choose to charge for an you use it without making that payment then you are the evil one, not me. I am not under a civic duty to work for free any more than you are under a civic duty to feed me for free.

I know some people may make the argument that just by copying something you are not depriving the producer of anything so it is not really theft. Maybe they are right, but fact still remains that if nobody pays for something then the people who make that something are pretty quickly going to have to find something else to do for a living. If only some people are paying for something that is used by many people then how is that fair on the people who are paying when the freeloaders get the same gain for no investment?

I am certainly not saying the current system is perfect, but it still remains that many of us now are in a field where what we produce can be copied for almost no extra effort than that which was put into creating the original. We have to find a way as a society of spreading the cost of creating that original work around all the people who use it so that the creator gets rewarded and is encouraged to carry on producing what they do. That usually means charging per copy so that when you sell a certain volume you recoup the amount invested in creating the original.

So all this leaves is the age old gripe about things being too expensive for some of us to afford so we will not pay. While this is true in a great many cases it is unfortunate that we cannot really determine how expensive something should be unless we know the full costs incurred in its production and how many people are going to pay for it.

Of course

[war4peace]

I mean, was there any shadow of doubt? It's a request for a service which Google can provide, but is not mandatory, either by law or by Google's internal rules and regulations.
I see no faux pas here. Pay enough and we will help you.
I only hope the price is sufficiently high.

Re:Of course

[Saint Fnordius]

It is common in business: if there is something that you don't want to do but can't risk saying so outright, then you ask for more than the person asking is willing to pay. The tricky part is deciding to be teasingly high (the diplomatic no) or ridiculously high (the barely concealed insult).

Re:Of course

[ScrewMaster]

That's a bargain, considering with each link they lose billions and billions of dollars.

No, billions is a readily quantifiable value. They don't want that, because then people might ask them to prove how much they lose. So instead, they lose either gazillions or bazillions, whichever is greater.

Google's service

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Google's search engine only catalogs search results. If these companies want special features, it makes sense that they would be willing to pay for its development. And since such a service would rely on Google's servers, there would also be an additional fee to help Google defray the cost of the additional load.

Google isn't standing up to anyone here. They are simply doing business.

Re:Google's service

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, the issue goes way beyond some teenagers thinking "I want music and I want it for FREE".

For instance, considering how long music downloading has been around, it's clear artists don't need the major labels anymore. An artist can open a website and publish his or her own work without the labels in the middle taking away most of the profits. In fact, some artists have done that.
Also, it makes more sense to go after the people who provide music instead of those who download it. There should be less up-loaders than down-loaders, and if you stop the up-loaders you should stop the problem. But when possible, labels go after down-loaders. Why?
Because they don't want to let artists publish their music themselves (that would be the end of labels). As long as you can be fined/imprisoned for downloading music, you won't download ANY music unless you are 100% sure a song is legal to download. As a result, artists who choose to make their songs available for free on the Internet or P2P networks won't get much downloads and this method of sharing their work won't be successful. They'll have no choice but to rely on labels.

Also, as a down-loader, it's sometimes difficult to check the legality of files you download. People should not be punished because some guy was offering them a copyrighted song/movie as if it was not copyrighted. The up-loader however should know what kind of files he's providing and whether or not they are legal to distribute. I should be able to connect to a P2P network, type "Action Movie", expect to get a list of non-copyrighted movies and download any movie I want without worrying about copyright issues (the movies should either be copyright-free, or the guy up-loading them should be entirely responsible for the copyright-infringement).
Not to mention the fact that some files are not labeled properly, and so you may accidentally acquire a copyrighted file while trying to acquire a legal file... You can prove that in court, but labels can make your life miserable for several years if they want to. They can make your trial last a long time, force you to get an expensive lawyer, and once the judge rules in your favor they can just appeal the sentence and start again. I don't think that ever happened, but they have that option available. They can't win if you fight until the end, but most certainly you'll end up settling out of court to get done with this and you'll pay the copyright-holders lots of money.

A few other things to consider:
- Why should labels own the work of artists? Shouldn't artists own that work? Artists don't have much of a choice... Either they give away their rights to their work, or they don't get their work published. Imagine pen manufacturers making you sign a contract that what you write with their pens is their property since their pens helped you publish your work... It sounds like a crazy because we're used to labels making claims to the work they publish, but the two situations are actually not so different.

- Labels were originally supposed to be recording music and movies on a physical support (i.e. tape, CD, etc) and selling that product. When a song is downloaded, they are not recording a CD, and thus are not doing any work. Which is why it's nonsense to consider that they are robbed of anything (Imagine doctors suing you when you advise a friend to take aspirin for her headache because your friend should had taken that advice from them instead)
However, labels own copyrights to works of artists, which is why they can consider themselves to be robbed. But as I said in my previous point, I don't think they should own those rights in the first place.

- In any industry, technological improvements lower the prices of products. Computers, cars, household appliances, etc... All cost less when they became easier and cheaper to produce and/or distribute. The music industry is the only exception. Despite the very cheap possibility to distribute music through the Internet (and thus removing the costs of recording CDs and shipp

OK, question time

[the_other_chewey]

WTF is a pirated link?

And the problem is?

[davmoo]

Google will have to have employees spend many hours of labor doing this. Of course they should expect to be paid for it by the content owners. Only a group of idiots like the RIAA would expect them to do it for free.

Re:And the problem is?

[dcollins]

You could call them "idiots" or you could call them "tyrants with a limited fief".

They're entirely accustomed to making outrageous demands and having others bend over immediately. Heck, this could be an opening salvo before lobbying the legislature to make it mandatory, no compensation to Google.

Evil or not?

[seeker_1us]

The Google response seems entirely appropriate. The MAFIAA runs around like spoiled, bullying children. Google's response is "yeah, you need a job done, maybe you should consider paying for it."

And you know what? I'd trust Google a hell of a lot more than Id trust the other MAFIAA goons. I bet Google would at least make sure who the "infringing" material belonged to.

Re:Search is what they do

[blahplusplus]

"It still feels kind of wrong though."

The only thing wrong is their broken business model, information was never designed to be propertized in an internet age. Tough shit for them.

Read between the lines

[shoehornjob]

What he really said is "We don't want to fight your fight. Now pay me or fuck off."

Re:RIAA "haha"

[aliquis]

All I want to know is how much I have to pay Google to not be included? :D

Google?

[cdrguru]

So why are pirated materials now appearing in Google?

Well, it would seem partly because various fake torrent sites think it is a good idea to have their index indexed by Google. Which then leads to people without a clue clicking on links to all sorts of silly stuff.

Ever notice that no matter what you are looking for there are sites that have the exact keywords you are searching for in the exact order you are searching for them in? Oddly enough, it seems that these results always lead to another non-Google search page which is doing a search and showing some kind of results. With Google ads on it. Again.

If Pirate Bay has an index and it is not indexed by Google, then what good does it do for Google to be doing this? On the other hand, if this eliminates torrentsareus.biz, I'm all for it.

Re:Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did a search for some obscure computer vision stuff, and I still got a few bizzare little spam sites (using excerpts from papers, strung together in a way that made it look relevant in the Google blurb). That's the only time I've clicked on one of those recently; I figured I was searching for something too obscure. Wrong. Always wrong.

Re:The summary...

[Kilrah_il]

I'm sorry, but if I have to choose between the summery, which is pure Flamebait material, and the article which actually makes sense, I would surely go with option 1. Why pass on an opportunity to laugh at the "Do no evil" slogan?

Re:Search is what they do

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

Their whole business model is designed around selling advertisements next to things you have found.

The RIAA and friends will not be purchasing things from the ads. Google need to recoup the losses of using the system somehow. Google choose to do this with a flat fee. There are some days when I'd pay for Google without the ads. I say bring on GoogleSubscriber. All the results, none of the ads.

Mis-Read Headline-

[no1home]

I initially thought the headline said Big Media Wants More Privacy Busting From Google

I guess that's likely true as well.