YouTube Drops 2 Billion Fake Music Industry Views

An anonymous reader writes "YouTube has dropped 2 billion fake music industry views and their offending videos. From the article: 'Google made good on its promise to weed out views inflated by artificial means last week, according to Daily Dot. Record company sites impacted included titans like Universal Music Group, which reportedly lost 1 billion of its 7 billion views, and Sony, who lost 850 million views. The cuts affected marquee names like Rhianna, Beyonce and Justin Bieber. YouTube said in a statement that the figures had been deliberately, artificially inflated. 'This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our view count policy,' the company, which is owned by Google, wrote.'"

Comments

Great

[sheehaje]

My band went from 72 views to 5. Damn you Google!

Re:Great

[sheehaje]

That would be a shameless plug, which is a never done on Slashdot... and besides, that post was my attempt at self-deprecating humor. I see it's mostly failed so far.

*phew*

[alphatel]

"Gangnam Style was not affected", thank goodness, I didn't want to watch it another billion times!

Re:Same old tactics

[dkleinsc]

Same tactics from the producers, but also same behavior from consumers who have to know if something is popular before adopting it.
I suggest not looking at counters when choosing stuff for yourself.

But millions of people look at what's popular when choosing what to buy, and they can't all be wrong, right?

Re:What if Google is wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the world of Google. Don't be evil (if you're not us).

Not so many Bieber fans after all...

[Cid Highwind]

"The cuts affected marquee names like Rhianna, Beyonce and Justin Bieber."

This restores a tiny bit of my faith in humanity. Now if we could just get confirmation that 90% of the people watching "Here Comes Honey Boo-boo" are bots too...

Re:Not so many Bieber fans after all...

[plover]

Now if we could just get confirmation that 90% of the people watching "Here Comes Honey Boo-boo" are bots too...

They ARE mindless robots. Just that they're the flesh and blood kind, so they still get pageviews.

Re:What if Google is wrong?

[Sulphur]

I had a similar experience months ago with a false positive on their copyright-enforcement system. There is no effective appeal, as the system is so heavily automated. I tried contacting them, but never was able to get a reply, even after a few attempts. I just stopped posting videos on youtube. They are on my own personal website now, but without the youtube social promotion system they aren't going to get many views.

Just my dabblings in video restoration and blowing fruit up with a capacitor bank.

Does Gallagher have the copyright on that?

--

An evil doer just slashdotted this.

Re:What if Google is wrong?

[Shark]

Uh oh... I post example of work done on my milling machine. The horrible whine sound of the spindle definitely could be interpreted as RIAA copyrighted material, especially given the talent of pop singers lately.

Re:What if Google is wrong?

[codewarren]

Easy: here's mine that was removed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ReM0v3dVid

It now says it is "unavailable". Can you believe that? All because I said this Halibut was good enough for Jehovah!

Re:YES!

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

Why not both? Two great tastes, taste great together!

Re:What if Google is wrong?

[Nyder]

Easy: here's mine that was removed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ReM0v3dVid

It now says it is "unavailable". Can you believe that? All because I said this Halibut was good enough for Jehovah!

Wait, we can post videos that offend people? And I am just finding out about this now?