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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."
It's only evil if you're not getting paid for it.
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.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
WTF is a pirated link?
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.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
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.
If Google had a more efficient means of finding what you're looking for, they'd incorporate it into their search engine. If you're looking for copyrighted information, just google it.
Also, James Pond?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
'Raised eyebrows'? Maybe Google used RIAA's pricing model and asked for $10,000,000 per infringement.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
....and the article don't match. According to the article which I ::gasp:: read, Google is, in general, developing several APIs for direct access to the engine without scraping. Of the three mentioned, one of those options would work for the kind of searches the RIAA wants to do. Google politely pointed this out to the *AAs, but also pointed out they charge a fee for the queries - which, as the article says, could cost the *AAs a very large amount of money if they decided to use the API.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
What he really said is "We don't want to fight your fight. Now pay me or fuck off."
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
I propose that Google charge the RIAA slightly less than retail value per CD worth of infringing music that they discover. Using RIAA logic, every prevented CD download is a sale so, this seems like a very modest cut for Google to take if it helps recoup all those untold billions of dollars the RIAA is "losing".
Big Media Wants More Piracy Busting From Google
This just in:
Cigarette companies want to downplay the harmful effects of tobacco.
(Insert party here) wants more control over the senate.
Religious officials suggest being religious is good for you.
I'd file this one under the No Shit category.
All I want to know is how much I have to pay Google to not be included? :D
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.
A sig is placed here
To display how futile
English Haiku is
...was set at THEIR SOULS.
The record industry executives immediately pointed out that they HAVE no souls of their own, and would the company accept souls they had collected from musicians and filesharers? They were told in no uncertain terms that third party souls would NOT be accepted.
Google gets paid by the RIAA and the IFPI to put people on a list.
Then Google gets paid by those on the list to be taken off the list.
Note to self: buy more Google stock
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
They already had it, but the world changed while they were busy counting their beeelyuns and admiring their own incredibleness. Now they're desperately trying to make things the way they were, but to do it they have to try and enforce a kind of control that will require personal/consumer rights to take a monumental shit-kicking.
By now, it should be obvious to any lawmaker, businessman, and consumer, that the digital age has affected their business model significantly and fundamentally (not unlike any other market niche in the last hundred years). For the music industry, digitized media is now nothing more than advertising to draw people out to the live performances. And if the movie biz can't cope with the modern realities of the internet, then I assert the best compromise of consumer and supplier rights is that they withdraw from the home market entirely, and show their movies only in their supplied controlled environments (theatres) - y'know, just like before whole home market was ever conceived? The home market was great for a while, lucrative and exploitable, but that pocket of income has dried up.
That doesn't mean one can't *try* and sell a digitized product, but the idea of slapping one's own price on it is an unrealistic expectation. In an age of infinite supply, if we are to maintain an open market, then consumer-determined value, and a way to efficiently employ micropatronage, are the two keystones to keeping that market free.
The telcos get paid rapacious fees by the government to "voluntarily" provide direct intercept rooms for the war on terror. Halliburton and Blackwater get paid highwayman prices for services in the war zones. Now Google is licking its lips over getting a taste of the copyright war booty.
In an America run by authoritarians who love war, war metaphors, getting re-elected for their positions on war, and getting campaign ads sponsored by war-enriched corporations, being anything other than a war profiteer is choosing to be second tier.
Good? Bad? Necessary but regrettable? Maybe all those things in various specific cases. But always: A big chunk of GDP.
Eisenhower was right about the military-industrial complex. The only thing he missed: That war and war spending is not limited to things involving soldiers and guns. The war metaphor gives us the opportunity to extend war-footing excesses to all our beloved oligarchs.
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