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Google Blocks Author's Ads For Offering Torrent Of His Own Book
An anonymous reader points out the recent trouble of author Cody Jackson, who wrote a book called Learning to Program with Python. He offers the book for sale, but also gives it away for free, and he used the CC-BY license. In order to distribute the book, he posted links to his torrent of it. Unfortunately, this cause Google to suspect his AdSense account for his website. Even after removing the links, he was unable to get in contact with Google's AdSense team to get his accounts restored. After his story was picked up yesterday by Techdirt, somebody at Google "re-reviewed" his case and finally reinstated his account. Jackson had this to say: "One good thing about this is that it has helped raise awareness of the problems with corporate copyright policies and copyright regulation as a whole. When a person is unable to post his/her own products on the 'net because someone fears copyright infringement has occurred, there is a definite problem." This follows a few high-profile situations in which copyright enforcement bots have knocked down perfectly legitimate content.
Its only going to get worse.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Copyright enforcement by software: the speed camera of the internet...if the traffic ticket were set to eliminate your whole wage. Actual people could review this stuff...or we could all accept that if you use the tools a giant corporation provides to you at essentially no cost, you are totally at their mercy.
I would write something insightful but then the copyright police would come after me for violating my own copyright.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Given the numerous articles about copyright enforcement bots recently, it makes me wonder why there is so little human oversight about account banning. Or even attempting to match the author to the work to the copyright in question to the offending post. Apparently, it is better to throw out all the apples, and review the ones that that claim they aren't bad.
It also makes me wonder why it seems difficult to talk to an actual person at google about account restoration. I hope to never have to go through the process.
greed@All_Evils:~#
If a corporation can make money on your stuff, you are not allowed to give it away.
America, by the corporations, for the corporations.
This is why the 'torrents == piracy' mentality is such an issue - torrents are seen as such a red flag these days that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. People are unwilling to use BitTorrent as a distribution method as it's seen as a bad thing.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Google is also a victim here, a victim of language re-defined by rights-holders (those who usually aren't creators) such as the RIAA, MPAA, BSA and the like. They've been given power, and they use it to redefine terms. That affects how we think and react.
Because of this redefinition, it's a rare soul who won't jump to the conclusion I'm doing something highly illegal if I state I'm downloading and redistributing copyrighted material belonging to Apple Inc via Bittorrent.
Via language our thoughts are funneled into a narrow tunnel-visioned meaning, and the millions of times a day that people do the above, entirely legally, are disregarded. Most of us here have used Ubuntu, and done precisely the above by downloading it.
Then google sees "torrent" and "download" and suspends an account because of the same tunnel vision...
It really isn't just about auto-copywrite-infringement bots. It's really about non-overrideable bots with no human oversight in general. This problem reminds me very much of a problem I had a week ago, in which I wanted to put a large purchase on a credit card (then pay it back like the next day, with money I'd just been paypal'd, but that hadn't made it to my bank yet). I told the bank a week in advance: I am making a large purchase on this date, please don't flag it as suspicious. The response back was that they would make a note, but it would probably be marked suspicious anyway, and there was nothing they could do about it.
So I get there, I try to make the purchase, and sure enough: the charge is canceled and my card is suspended. So I call up the bank, tell them what happened, ask whether they can fix it. Answer: nope, it was all automatic, you'll have to call back later and hope someone with more privilege than a first-level phone support operator has is around. Thanks a lot, every-bank-on-the-planet (cause really, it's not just that one bank, they're all like this now.)
Yes, computers are getting more powerful. Yes, you can cut costs by hiring fewer humans to do superfluous things. You can cut costs even more by hiring fewer humans to do things they're really required to do, and just do a frelling terrible job of it as a result. But at least keep one person around at all times to clean up after the resulting mess, please, every company ever? Thanks a lot.
If you have a google adsense acct, torrent your novel, grocery list, anything trivial or not, that you own copyright to, and post an ad to the link. Make the automated tools as useless as possible and show that a 'guilty by default' rule is just WRONG.
[quote}When a person is unable to post his/her own products on the 'net because someone fears copyright infringement has occurred, there is a definite problem[/quote]
Corporations have free reign, access and usage of special "corporate" copyright tools. Try getting access to those as a person.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If I were him id sue myself for infringement...that'll keep them lawyers tied up for a while... like an infinite loop
The default assumption of these automated checkers is that anything shared is infringing.
I've run into this myself. While I give away my book Modern Perl free in electronic forms, my publisher charges a nominal fee for the Kindle version to cover expenses. I made some changes recently to fix some formatting problems and edit out a couple of typos. After I uploaded a new version, the Kindle copyright police declined the update (to a book they'd already allowed in their store) because they thought it was available online for free elsewhere.
I understand that no one wants a million copies of Wikipedia articles clogging up book stores, but it would be nice if there were a way to say "Yes, the contents of this book are available under a Creative Commons license and I have the right to distribute it."
(My publisher has the same right to distribute the printed copy, and Amazon is very happy to sell that version.)
how to invest, a novice's guide
is that we don't talk about copyright.
The second rule of copyright, if you feel like violating the first rule, is that all copyright belongs to big rights aggregators and media monopolies until extensively and conclusively proven otherwise.
The third rule of copyright is that all copyright belongs to big rights aggregators and media monopolies even after extensively and conclusively proven otherwise.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The other problem is that the only way to get in contact with google is to have a story published on a high profile website.
Google is a terrible company to get ahold of. I'd imagine that they might get a lot of phone-spam and useless complaints, so try to keep their support lines hidden, but when problems or bugs arise it's often very hard to find out who to contact.
This is especially true as they're supporting many "consumer" markets such as android etc.
I've had charges blocked when buying large-ticket items, usually after buying smaller stuff and gas (often a pattern for card theft).
Usually the charge blocks, and within about 1-2 minutes I get a call from Visa which asks me to verify my purchase. After they confirm things then all is well.
"Protect Our Prophet" & "Protect Our Profit"
This automation of checking and acting on that is quite scary stuf.
It can ultimately lead to the opening scenes of Brazil, the movie made by Terry Gilliam.
1. don't take anything down until a "DMCA request" comes
2. acknowledge receipt of DMCA request, ask the submitter to - in addition to be (agents of) the copyright holder in the request - confirm that the requested download link is indeed the work in question, and if not, accept liability for the cost involved
3. take down link
4a. nothing happens -> fine.
4b. take-down successfully appealed -> submitter will need to fork over say $1,500 per wrongly submitted request. Further DMCA takedown notices are being held in queue until payment is received.
Isn't this is exactly what the large publishers/record companies/movie producers want? Make it more difficult to publish or own stuff which makes it harder to compete with them? Remember when you had to be a computer nerd to make a website to share information? Now anybody who can click a mouse can post whatever they want on Facebook or elsewhere. That's exactly what the publishers don't want to happen to them.
The only way this problem is going to be improved is if the law requires some sort of human oversight, and somehow held accountable for such blatantly false takedown notices. Not that I see that happening anytime soon.
I've got an AdSense account, and there's NO WAY I'd do this. There are just too many cases similar to this one - Google auto-bans someone incorrectly, then that person discovers it's well-nigh impossible to get that ban reviewed by a real person.
Many of us AdSense users are ridiculously paranoid about this possibility because it appears to happen fairly frequently.
Yeah, good luck with that. You can post something on a message board they'll ignore and that's the extent of customer support it seems.
So true, there is literally no alternative to Adsense. We tip toe every change to make sure we are are not banned (we hold creative commons content, some of which is good enough to be hated by the copyright cartels, and we receive tons of DMCA requests). Unless you have an Adsense account specifically for trolling, you should never try this.
well I can't post an ad on adwords for my band because the name of it is Viral Suicide. What they think a mass viral suicide will happen.
That would clear the air.
I've been trying to resolve a Google AdSense issue for a year, and they just don't seem to give a damn.
-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
So, has anyone ever tried to resolve an Adsense dispute with Google and not have it ignored or denied?
Yeah, evidently I got banned from Adsense for life because I put some ads on our forums and the kids did the darnedest thing... they actually clicked on them. A whole lot of times. I really didn't have any control over that. So they kept all the money I was to be paid from ALL of my sites (not just the one that the kids were clicking on), and banned me from Adsense, seemingly forever. I would click on the appeal button and ask what is up, and 6 months later they just say "denied".
I tried some of the other ad networks like Chiquita and Bidvertiser, but most of the ads were misleading or for scams and I had to delete them. The ones I did keep, on the most popular of my sites, have earned less than $1 in the entire time they have been up. Basically, Google has a monopoly on online advertising for small websites, so I'm pretty much screwed on ever making money from website advertising ever again.
Thanks for clicking on the ads, kids! Not...
(I wonder if this means that you can royally screw over websites by going and clicking on their ads every day?)
and the other big fuckers. They're not charities, you know.
That's what happens when Google is the income source, traffic source, video host, blog host, stats/analytics provider etc etc etc. You inadvertently break one of their rules and you lose your business or a substantial part of it with no recourse or at best a long wait for an appeal to be considered with no guarantees. The result is people jumping through hoops to get around such issues such as by having multiple accounts with fake details (or real details but using multiple registered companies) .
People really need to break their dependence on Google (and any other almost monopoly) even if it initially means making a bit less money or having to do a bit more work, ie. install piwik for stats (or use statcounter) , install wordpress on your own server for blogs (or use wordpress.com), use other ad networks (there are many or you could even sell your own ads) and optimize everything as much as you can (test test test!), get traffic from other sources - amazingly it is possible!
In other words - don't be lazy! Google is not the only game in town, they just want you to think that.
Google's (or any monolithic corporation's) terms and actions are designed for the benefit of the corporation (least effort, maximum profit now) and not for the so-called customer.
It cause[sic] Google to suspect it of what?
Presumably not murder of the English language - I'm pretty certain who's the culprit in that case.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Really. The articles get worse and worse. The "editors", if you could even call them that, pick the biggest non-stories available. What a bunch of useless fucktards.
Google blocked my AdSense on one of my websites a while back. The only reason stated was "torrents". The torrents on the site were for completely legal documentaries about false-flag terror. Google does not care what torrents are for, if you post a torrent on your site for your own work or works you can legally distribute then they will simply block you on the grounds that you are using a completely legal distribution protocol called BitTorrent.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation