Google Looks To Cut Funds To Illegal Sites

rbrandis writes "Google is in discussions with payment companies including Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to put illegal download websites out of existence by cutting off their funding. If Google goes ahead with the radical move, it would not mark the first time that illegal websites have been diminished or driven out of business by having a block put on their source of money."

Comments

Make piracy non-profit again

[concealment]

I think this could be great, and have unintended consequences that end up strengthening piracy.

By driving out the for-profit pirates, you restore it to the hobbyists, who tend to have high standards and be somewhat fanatical.

This will probably damage piracy of the vapid "big media" movies, music, etc. but will enhance piracy of niche markets and specialty genres, which will strengthen those through the "try before buy" principle among those who are likely to buy them anyway, if they like them.

Google's policies have already somewhat achieved this model. Some of the best piracy for music at least is through Youtube these days. They take down the big acts, but you can find lots of obscure and older material (full albums) with a simple search.

In many ways, this is the resolution between pirates and industry. Industry gets to protect its big money makers, which if pirated result in a loss of profits because they are only purchased for a short term (novelty value). Pirates get access to the vast breadth of information available that isn't in that single protected category.