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RIAA: Google Failing To Demote Pirate Websites
Nerval's Lobster writes "The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claims that Google has failed in its attempt to lower the search-results rankings of so-called 'pirate' Websites. "We have found no evidence that Google's policy has had a demonstrable impact on demoting sites with large amounts of piracy," read the report's summary (PDF). 'These sites consistently appear at the top of Google's search results for popular songs or artists.' Last August, Google indicated that it would start lowering the search-result rankings of Websites with high numbers of 'valid' copyright removal notices. 'This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily—whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed on Spotify,' Amit Singhal, Google's senior vice president of Engineering, wrote in a corporate blog posting at the time. Google, which receives millions of copyright removal notices every month, also offers a counter-notice tool for those who believe their Websites have been unfairly targeted for copyright violations."
The RIAA can fuck off.
A search engine is supposed to search and display what it finds. I'll be the one to do the filtering
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I want my search engine to search the web for my query. Do not try to figure out what sort of legitimate use I have for my query, give me the results! Maybe I'm a copyright infringer trying to steal music, and maybe I'm a gun happy lawyer trying to sue the pants of the site owners.
"We have found no evidence that Google's policy has had a demonstrable impact on demoting sites with large amounts of piracy,"
LOL.
Right. Whatever. Blame Google, they're clearly the reason why your content sucks so much these days.
when does the riaa hollywood accounting get some action? Ripping off hard working artists with manipulative deals is fraud in other businesses.
...that Google realizes this is just a complete waste of time and put a couple of interns on it, so they could get the RIAA to stop calling them day and night.
Anecdotal observation here.
Went to Google and typed in Mumford. Guess what, no pirate sites appeared on the first page.
But there was a Wired article complaining about the "no unauthorized copying lending public performance etc. statement on the back of their latest album.
Maybe the RIAA doesn't want us noticing that the 'no unauthorized lending clause' has no legal basis.
Search results are supposed to reflect what is out there. Deal with it.
Though I dislike their point. Google said it was going to make a good faith attempt to list these types of sites lower if they were providing unlicensed copyrighted materials and Google knew about it. Personally, I think Google shouldnt have bothered unless they HAD to but I digress. They claimed their policy would be that they would make it their goal to accomplish this if they were made aware of these sites as repeat offenders. I would say if the RIAA's claim of sending thousands of take downs for these same sites to Google is sincere then the RIAA's examples do make the case that Google may be disingenuous about the extent of their attempts to try and lower list pirate sites.
The pirate sites will be more popular (therefore more clicks, therefore higher rank; regardless of negations made on behalf of a dying business model) than the legitimate ones until the RIAA (et al.) stop reaming both consumers and artists alike.
On Google when you type the query "politics" or "government".
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
Yes, because everyone *else* in the world even remotely/tangentially having anything to do with digital media, has an obligation to spend considerable time and money protecting Sony, BMG. etc.'s business.
Search engines must hire additional coders to ensure that internet is censored as per Sony 's whims. Hardware manufacturing companies must spend significant extra money on ensure DRM compliance. ISPs must spy on their customers to ensure that no copyright-infringement happens. Police which is funded by public tax money(you and me) must spend valuable time and effort on catching the nefarious "music stealers". Senators who are elected by the people and paid by public tax money, must instead ensure laws favoring BMG/Sony that make copying files a worse crime than rape or murder.
Whereas, the same "victim" companies, move their headquarters outside to cheat the American public out of the benefits of any tax money they might have had to pay. We have all the obligations to them. They have none to us or even the actual creators of the said music etc.
Soon doctors will likely be required to ensure that they perform free deafening procedures on everyone who might end up listening to "infringing music".
The solution is simple. Realize that lobbying is equivalent to bribery and force your senator to pass a law against it.
Beach Boys Free MP3
You can see some takedown notices at the bottom of the results page, but Google is also letting in quite a few pirate sites too. The takedown notices seem like window dressing. Hmm, you would think that the search engine geniuses working on self-driving cars could figure out a way to filter out mp3skull, mp3lemon, mp3juices, etc etc. And this half-assed compliances continues for page after page of results. Substitute any other popular recording artist for Beach Boys, same thing.
I'd be pretty pissed off too if I was a businessman relying on the Google VP's promise to filter out the pirate sites.
I'm thinking that Google is afraid of losing part of their audience to specialized search engines flying fast and loose on the IP front.
Oh yeah? I searched for "useless twits", "thieving bastards" and "lying motherfuckers" and in none of the cases did "RIAA" appear near the top of the list. Clearly google has a lot of work to do to fix their search engine...
But Google really is a monolithic corporate which knows what it's users want, how to deliver it to them and how to make money from that. In short, Google knows how to use the internet to it's advantage rather than wasting all of it's resources trying to find the off switch.
The PDF has a very handy list of "notorious" sites, many of which were new to me. The RIAA should have Googled "Streisand Effect" before they released that....
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
A black market will exist as long as there is a reason for it. The more money that is siphoned out of our pockets by the swine of an unproductive industry, the further we will go to protect our interests. I'd love to believe Hollywood helped better our education system or somehow improved our standards of living... and maybe it is anti-american to believe it has taken more then it has given... yet I pay a hidden tax on all my blank media and generate add revenue for the american music lables on my youtube video that happened to catch an audio clip in the background. I spend more than a meal or hour of minimum wage on a single album or movie screening. Oh... and I'm NOT an American. I am Canadian.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
The day it becomes apparent to most users that google is manipulating results is the day a new search engine will take over. Let's not forget how google got so popular to begin with: they had the most relevant search results around. Water this down and they lose value. They're not invincible and their future is by no means guaranteed. Ain't that right AOL?
"Last August, Google indicated that it would start lowering the search-result rankings of Websites with high numbers of 'valid' copyright removal notices."
Emphasis mine.
They left out piratebay.se
It doesn't matter. I and millions of people use google to FIND what WE want,
not what the RIAA wants us to find.
Hey RIAA, like the first response says - fuck off.
E
It's to their users... no doubt their idea of "piracy" includes fair use content as well... observe how they list Youtube as separate from "authorized"....
They list mere counts of average number of times a site appeared that had 10,000 or more removal requests, or 1,000 or more remove requests.
Out of millions of remove requests received by Google; 10,000 pages at issue on a large site do not necessarily qualify as "a large number of requests".
RIAA's arguments are non-constructive, and they have offered no evidence that Google has not taken successful action to demote piracy results.
If I google for "name of song/movie torrent" then the legit MAFIAA versions are hardly going to be in the top 10.
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/ Google produces a report that includes a breakdown of all requests Google has received since July 2011 to remove copyright-infringing content from its search index. Google updates the information daily.
Poor babies.
John Eadie [JE46] http://www.c-art.com `one of these days the dogs aren't going to eat the dog food' - Bill Joy
Ever since RIAA realized they can sue grandmothers for millions and people with open WIFI access points, they've gotten super sue happy. The bar down the street got sued for $100,000 for doing karaoke. I mean everyone is getting sued. The radio stations online are sued to do tribute. The Canadian government got influenced so they impose taxes on CDs to give tribute to RIAA. RIAA probably realizes there is more money to be had in suing people than actually producing something now since everything goes in their favor. Now they're weighing up a big whale and seeing if they can take it sounds like it. Someone needs to stop the RIAA, they ruin lives because they're just plain greedy and have no morals to stop them. They started with screwing artists, now they're trying to sue everyone possible. It's just sick.
God spoke to me
maybe the suits at RIAA are getting personalized results, just like everyone else.
think about it - if all they click on are pirate sites, that's going to fairly effectively override any pagerank tweaks that google can throw at them.
a RIAA lawyer is hardly going to click on spotify, hulu or itunes if they're looking to C&D someone.
The RIAA can just provide a list, mapping from "pirate site" --> "legitimate site".
Every time a naughty link is found, they can update the list and Google can display both. At least this will help the everyone see just how easy it is to get legitimate content...
.. google has everything it needs to become a mega media company. Leverage youtube to be a permanent American Idol, sign up REAL talent with an established following, bam.
'These sites consistently appear at the top of Google's search results for popular songs or artists.'
Lets search for "The Big Bang Theory S06E17 720p download". Hm, only pirate sites. Why would that be? Maybe because there are no legal Sites to appear.
The real Problem is, that at the time people search for popular downloads of Music/Movies and Television shows, there are no legal alternatives to pirate sites. At least outside the US. Sure in 2 Years you might find it on a legal Streaming site or buy the DVD/Bluray half Season box, but today? Piracy is your only Option.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones They even get the ads on the pirate site right.
Neither does the rest of the world.
You stick to what you do best, exploiting musicians, RIAA and leave the internet to the REST OF THE WORLD.
Perhaps if you're feeling all "moral" you could sue of few of your members selling compilation albums of songs they don't have the rights to sell. There's a clear-cut case of someone taking money from the artist.
Search for MP3 download options:
Before:
TPB: 90 points.
Some other torrent site: 80 points.
Yet another torrent site: 70 points.
Legal sites: Yeah right.
After:
TPB: 9 points.
Some other torrent site: 8 points.
Yet another torrent site: 7 points.
Legal sites: Yeah right.
RIAA: Those pesky torrent sites are still coming out on top. Our big expensive site where you can buy a DRM-infected version that won't play anyway, are still not on top, unless you search specifically for "Sony root-kit buy waste money too rich".
See subject.
" And they claim Google's getting fat on it (which is true -- ad revenues -- many times over when a downloader gets pwned)."
Proof required.
Their ad revenues come from everything, not just the site you happen to be looking at.
And Google should get paid for their work to capture revenue for RIAA labels, shouldn't they? After all, they did this work.
it's like a free library of all the world's music ever made. i haven't paid for music in over 8 years. they even have some tv shows and movies. thanks youtube!
The RIAA can fuck off.
A search engine is supposed to search and display what it finds. I'll be the one to do the filtering
You are half right. (100% right about the RIAA, btw, but only half right about search engines.) A search engine is a content delivery service, period. It is supposed to generate profit by delivering search results, the same way Netflix/Unbox/Hulu generates profit by delivering movies and TV shows. The minute you let your customers control their end of the delivery pipeline is the minute you've lost control of your business model and can start kissing your profits good-bye. Google makes money by selling advertising content mixed in with those search results -- if Google allowed you to arbitrarily filter those search results, companies would stop paying Google to insert their ads into your search result stream. End-to-end control of the delivery pipeline is absolutely necessary in this business model. The entertainment industry learned this the hard way, when their customers discovered they could get the same content via the simple expedient of finding somebody (hello, Google!) who had a copy of the content they wanted. This is the single most important lesson to be learned about content delivery via the net. Information may want to be free, but in order to make a profit on it, you have to constrain it by making it available only to those people who can pay for it, and you can only do that by making certain that your customers can't go elsewhere for it, which is what the entertainment industry epically failed to do (an error that it is fighting desperately, via the loathsome RIAA and MPAA, to correct.) If Google loses control of their delivery pipeline, which is what you are advocating, then their business model is doomed.
Last August, Google indicated that it would start lowering the search-result rankings of Websites with high numbers of 'valid' copyright removal notices. 'This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily—whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed on Spotify,' Amit Singhal, Google's senior vice president of Engineering, wrote in a corporate blog posting at the time.
Maybe it's just that even after demotion, the pirate sites are still the best possible result, ranking above the sites that the RIAA would like to see at the top...
Google should demonstrate how effective their demotions are by not demoting anything for a month and burying the RIAA under the statistical data of the before and after comparisons.
Then take them to court for liable. And charge them for the cost of performing the statistical analysis.
The RIAA have been proven to be the real pirates. If they can fuck off.
I want my search engine to search the web for my query. Do not try to figure out what sort of legitimate use I have for my query, give me the results! Maybe I'm a copyright infringer trying to steal music, and maybe I'm a gun happy lawyer trying to sue the pants of the site owners.
I agree, and this use to be the way. But, that ship has sailed. Your queries are already skewed or influenced by what Google thinks you want or should want.
You may not have noticed it, but your searches now live in an echo chamber whose walls are closing in on you. Your searches are localized, correlated with your previous searches and what Google has derived to be your interests, or at least the interests of those on your internet connection(household, dorm, office). No longer do you get the most relevant results, now you get the results most relevant to you and if you've demonstrated yourself to be an idiot, your tailored results will be an idiotic reflection of you.
Welcome to the power of knowledge and the promise of the world wide web.
The RIAA should be treated as a pirate site, because that is how they act! So, apply their own standards to them and see what happens! :-)
"Piracy" is such an archaic term; we forget its origins in royal charter, and connote common criminality by it these days, instead of state sanction or monopoly, which we reserve for the more "respectable", nay, sacred, "copyright".
Short of telling RIAA to go fuck themselves, Google could just play fair and also assign neutral ranking at most to all DMCA-friendly networks, websites or content. You want to promote, market, and merchandise that next platinum album or blockbuster film? You're gonna have to pony up olenty to get that ranking up. Profiteering gluttons, beware; you could get what you ask for.
Cognitive Liberty Front
it's not google's business model to do the bidding of the RIAA. they can bite me.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
http://www.google.com/ ?
I plug in womprat. Starwars wiki comes up first. "Safesearch" drop down box on the right; "Filter Explicit results" is the first option.
Was that so hard that you still feel oppressed by a lack of options? What exactly are you complaining about?