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MPAA Threatens To Disconnect Google From Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Over the last few months, Google has received more than 100 copyright infringement warnings from MPAA-affiliated movies studios. Most are directed at users of Google's public Wi-Fi service, but others are meant for Google employees. The MPAA is thus warning the search giant that it might get disconnected from the Internet. Although the copyright holders use strong language, these notices are simply warnings, and typically do not lead to legal action."
I won't be sad the day the movie industry goes out of business. I've found other ways to find entertainment which does not involve them. Everything does not have to last forever.
Wouldn't it be funny, though? Imagine if Google did this with others too: "Sorry, but we're not going to include results from people who are currently suing us. Don't shit where you eat!"
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
> No law is adequate, no business is more important, no constitutional right can supersede the wishes of the commercial content industry.
G'kar, I know your government did some sketchy things to raise money during the Earth-Mimbari war, but speaking for the MPAA? Dude, go back to the arms sales. Much more honorable.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
You know, they could do this. They could just stop indexing everything MPAA related (i.e. their homepage). That's more or less a death sentence on the internet these days.
I think the word you're looking for is "barratry".
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
So what you're saying here is that there's someone even better capable than Sony in spewing out nuclear-grade stupid? How exactly do they propose to remove Google from the Internet? That's like removing oxygen from the air in an instant. Actually, I have a suggestion for a better course of action for the MPAA: How about just going back to the business of just making decent movies and quit harassing folks entirely? That way, you get products out there people actually care about, and people don't cringe in anger every time they hear mention of your organization in the news. Just a thought.
I would like to see them try to take Google to court with their vaults of money instead of single mothers and college kids that can't afford to fight back.
Don't mess with Google, they will fuck you up.
REV 13:4
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Can't happen. Google can't delist swaths of multi-billion dollar entertainment companies responsible for generating the bulk of popular culture. They'd sink their own battleship.
Google is strong because their search engine is strong. Take that away and they're not the Google we know today.
That's not to say it wouldn't be awesome to see, though. :)
I can see it now:
"No results found for 'MPAA'. Did you mean 'NAMBLA'?"
http://ipwatchdog.com/2009/01/19/riaa-attorney-appointed-to-top-doj-position/id=1594/
when they made movies that were seen in cinema houses, which people bought tickets too. how quaint and historic
oh wait!
that's not history: the most profitable movie ever made, "avatar", just made a mint, less than a year ago, excluding all dvd sales. they made a massive profit in these quaint historic relics called "cinemas"
the cinema house is not a historic relic. it still works as a solid revenue generator and business model. i'm certain some strange gollum like creatures are happy watching movies alone in their cold basement on a 17 inch screen, but most of will go drive or walk to the cinema and pay to see movies, even with the cell phones and babies and expensive popcorn, its still a superior experience. they've even done sociological studies that all the oohs and aahs in the theatre alongside you in the dark heightens the movie going experience: we're social creatures, that someone else is crying or laughing or afraid heightens your enjoyment. it's the same sociology that drives people to go to church: shared emotional experience equals enjoyment (i know, this is probably the wrong website to talk about this social phenomenon)
cinemas, in other words, with the latest in IMAX tech, with their huge screens: you can't recreate that at home. cinema is a solid business. they said cinema houses were dead... in the 1950s. tv was supposed to kill them, it didn't. vhs tape was supposed to kill them, it didn't. and now the internet is supposed to kill the cinema. guess what: it's not. profits have been going up and up and up, no dvd sales, no internet streaming or cable deals needed
the mpaa is not protecting its existence, its protecting its dvd cash cow (which is already dying) and other cable deals/ internet ways to stream movies
but if they limited themselves to revenue just from theatres, and DID THEIR FUCKING JOB and protected the movie files form being pirated/ stolen from cinema houses... guess what? they would still make plenty of money to fund plenty of moviemaking from cinema houses. imagine that!
so basically: fuck you mpaa. stay in your cinema house, and don't mess with the internet. assholes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I was going to make the joke "Who's MPAA? Google search turns up nothing."
Then I could say "Bing doesn't have anything either. WTF?"
But it's just too easy.
Actually no. It's a mutated urban legend based on the truth that they did refuse to speak to CNET's reporters for a year after CNET published an article containing a number of personal facts about Eric that they 'discovered' using Google.
Just speculate for a minute - let's assume they pull their Evil Puppet String, call someone on the Purple Phone, and Voila, Google is faced with a cease and desist from doing business on the net. Just here in dreamland, suppose it is as easy as what Egypt pulled.
Would that be enough for the revolt to kick off real change? Would the frog finally notice it's been boiling?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
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The world is how you make it
Google is several times larger than Hollywood.
Remember, Hollywood is the land of hype. It makes itself look more profitable and important than it is, because that helps it sell itself and its products.
The entire annual gross revenue of movies from the MPAA member studios (about $10 billion) is only a little bigger than Google's annual profit (about $7 billion).
I'll say that again: Google's PROFIT is almost as big as Hollywood's REVENUE.
Now, that doesn't include TV, home-video, and merchandising. But it should indicate that Google has a lot more say in how a head-to-head fight would go.
Think of it this way. If Hollywood decided to start a software company and search engine and ad reseller and hire away Google's talent to do it, how would it do? And if Google decided to start a movie studio and hire away Hollywood's talent to do it, how would it do? Google's people are all salaried and sinecured. Hollywood's are a ravenous band of nomadic, mercenary contractors who go to the highest bidder without any concern for loyalty or decorum. And, once you've got the talent in place, good movies make themselves better without corporate involvement, since they make money by pulling in small but distinct segments of the overall market. But a Google-alike has to be able to please the entire planet all at once, something no Hollywood suit has ever accomplished and never will.
Google would win, and end up owning both industries.
Thank you MPAA for being stupid enough to poke the sleeping bear.
Finally you've picked a fight with someone big enough to defend themselves against your usual bully tactics.
I hope Google effortlessly disembowels you. It couldn't happen to a more deserving institution (other than the RIAA).
By what authority does the MPAA have the power to disconnect ANYONE from the internet?
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
Answer #1: Attention world please find attached a list of materials MPAA members or agents have directly released to the internet. We belive these are now considered free use to all.
Answer #2: Discovery request. The MPAA is requested to turn over all authorship and ownership rights documentation on all material the MPAA claims to have authority over. Note we are Google. We mean ALL. We will take paper napkins and scan them if needed. We want all physical mail and all email correspondence between the MPAA and members for the last 100 years or life of claimed copyright, which ever is longer. Note we are Google the amount of material is not a problem to us. Have a nice day.
Instead of fighting the MPAA, Google could replace the MPAA.
Google could approach each major studio and make a very clear case.
We control the disemination of information in a major way. We control the distribution of content in a major way. You haven't figured out the online model yet. And while the RIAA was busy chasing Napster, Apple came along with iTunes and took over the music industry. What if we decided to start purchasing the rights to distribute films, and completely eliminated your current distribution system?
We have the backbone to distribute them to theaters and invidual consumers just the same. And the people who would jump onboard first are the guys like James Cameron, Steve Speilberg, George Lucas, Chris Nolan, etc. that love to push innovation and new technology. The big blockbuster films that provide the bulk of your profit would disappear overnight.
Or you can beg right now to be kept in the loop and cut a similar deal with us now, where we allow you to continue to distribute to theaters and just use Google to help distribute to video on demand, Google TV, etc. in the future.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Actually according to http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html Google broke $10 billion in profit.
Meh.
Google's response: removing all search results for MPAA-backed content. MPAA collapses. Job well done, boys. "Suicide by Google" is certainly an interesting way to finally snuff yourself out.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Unfortunately... probably not. As much as I'd like to see Google launch an "the end justifies the means" campaign and crush MPAA, after some thought I got pessimistic about the prospect. Though theoretically Google could maybe buy all MPAA members one by one, Google is "new money" compared to it and the battle would be far, far from easy and predictable. After some amount of $$ it matters who you know, not how much you have.
-- Sig down
All of the members of the MPAA combined have a market cap barely more than Google itself
Disney - 82 billion
Viacom - 26 billion
News corp. - 44 billion
Time Warner - 40 billion
NBC Universal - 35 billion estimated
--
Total = 227 billion
Google - 196 billion
at least not without the help of a Republican president.
Who is it that's sitting in the White House, pushing for an internet kill switch and is already taking control of domains suspected of activities related to possible copyright infringement?
I love how you blithely limit the MPAA-members' financial clout to just their movie revnenue.
We're talking about Sony, Disney, GE, NBC Universal, Viacom, NewsCorp, and Time Warner here. They've got a lot more money than just the movie business, if they are so inclined to throw it around.
And while the MPAA collapses, Microsoft and Yahoo form a partnership and launche an aggressive "We don't censor your search results!" campaign, and lots of people just start using Bing and Yahoo, rather than get embroiled in a pissing contest between two big drunks who are both upwind. Meanwhile, MPAA and their lackeys all stop using and dealing with people who advertise via Google (the movie & recording industries generally have pretty big marketing budgets, in case you didn't notice). Ad revenues plummet just as Google has to begin spending lots of money on developing automated methods to scrub search results of any "MPAA-backed" materials. Net result: Google has also committed "suicide by Google!"
The government steps in, declares the movie studios AND Google to both be "too big to fail," and bails them out at taxpayer expense.
Yeah, that would be an awesome scenario. Seriously, I can't wait to see them come to blows, rather than work out their issues like fucking adults.