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Google's View On the Whac-a-Mole of Blocking Pirate Sites
jones_supa writes "During a debate in London last night, the game of whac-a-mole related to blocking pirate sites was discussed by artists, labels, the BPI, and Google. Most interestingly, Google's Theo Bertram brought to the table the idea of going after the sites as a business, which in practice would mean strangling their (often voluminous) advertising budget. A test performed by musician David Lowery confirmed that a search for Carly Rae Jepsen's 'Call Me Maybe' conjured up a list of unlicensed sites, some of which have an advertising relationship with Google. Geoff Taylor of the BPI said that Google has the both the information and technological ability to directly stomp infringing sites, but at the same time noted that somewhat oddly iTunes has not arranged itself a prominent position in the results to promote legally-purchased music, which can't be completely Google's fault."
The question is how to circumvent it..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Hey guys lets uh turn off porn and uh might as well kill pirated files and anything that might infringe on a copyright.
Let's see..... all that we got left is sports scores and taxidermy blogs.
Google should thread lightly on this path. Too much censorship and suddenly some less restrictive search engine could make it go the way of Yahoo..
"...Google has the both the information and technological ability to directly stomp infringing sites, but at the same time noted that somewhat oddly iTunes has not arranged itself a prominent position in the results to promote legally-purchased music...
So, I'm curious. Just exactly how many billions of downloads must the worlds largest legal music store obtain before managing to obtain a decent page rank?
Talk about a load-of-shit excuse, coming from the very company who is doing the indexing.
The reason iTunes isn't up there is that the iTunes music shop isn't accessible through a web browser. You can see what is on there but all the links just try to make you download iTunes. Google indexes the web, not iTunes.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
most music for sale is already on itunes. just go in there and search for music, why do it through google first?
or amazon if you don't like itunes.
Unless you remove every one of them at the same time. As well as the people.
Good luck. You already lost that battle.
How about you stop with your greed and abusive ways, then people might care.
Radio never killed anyone, the internet won't either.
Adapt or actually just seriously die already.
I'm sick of hearing your whining, BPI.
I don't even buy music associated with you, but shut the fuck up already.
So, if you don't advertise with us then we can't guarantee that your business will be protected by our ecosystem of scammers?
That's a nice business you got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. But for a small retainer, we can guarantee nothing happens to it.
Rather than fight potential customers by creating a new, inherently slimy industry, how about coming up with a way to engage them.
Geoff Taylor of the BPI said that Google has the both the information and technological ability to directly stomp infringing sites...
Everything is possible if someone else has to do it and pay for it.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Page ranking isn't based on music downloads or sales. Go be dense somewhere else. Please.
That fighting piracy is a waste of time and effort and that competing with them instead is a more viable alternative? After all, these companies have money.
Okay, so here we have a group of self-interested parties who suggest banding together so that they can
a) Determine by themselves whether someone is acting illegally, and
b) Take action against them by withholding services
c) Without judicial oversight, and with no discussion of due process whatsoever, including: warnings, appeal, or handling mistakes.
So we now have the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act which allows companies to make virtually anything a federal offense just by putting it in their TOS, they can pick and choose who they do business with at their whim, and are themselves historically immune from prosecution.
Of course, they will only use their power for good.
I think we need to enforce a "customer bill of rights" which states that a company cannot just cut off customers at will. It should be enforced by the government as a condition for being granted a business license. If a service is available and the customer can pay, then the company has an obligation to make the transaction. (Glossing over some details for brevity)
Are you against such a regulation? Under what circumstances can a company refuse to serve a customer? Race? Gender? Marital status? Sexual orientation? Ethnicity? What is the difference between any of these and arbitrary black-listing?
David Lowery's role in all this is similar (though less evil) to that of women who go into rural Thailand to convince families to give up their daughters, under the false pretenses that they will have comfortable housing and gainful employment in the city.
Do not trust label scouts.
.: Semper Absurda
So I suppose the music business is too cheap and nasty to just stump up the money to advertise music through AdWords (and pay more for words than two-bit pirate sites), so they'd rather abuse the courts and legal system to legislate to save themselves money?
Classy.
That wasn't a comment by google, but instead by BPI, the British version of RIAA.
It helps if you actually know more than a 20 second glance of the topic before commenting.
How about the Music and Movie Mafia* create their own music sites, which Google can index, and users can buy and download music and albums? *http://mafiaa.org/
They want to know why mp3skull.com comes up first (after Youtube)? Because they offer a useful service.
Without any trouble I can just download the song. Why can't the MAfia do a site like that?
You know, I would be somewhat compassion to the music artists and the Mafia, if they would not be such greedy asshats.
The copyright protected were expanded and expanded; payments for blank media introduced; DRM strengthened;
If the Mafia would actually try and not to be greedy asshats, like not sue private citizens.
Or like the GEMA (the German Mafia). I saw some weeks ego a video on Youtube that was posted here in Slashdot. But instead I get a "Sorry you can't see that song because the GEMA have not licensed any rights to it". I used a proxy to see the video nevertheless and then there was 4 seconds of a song at the beginning and 4 seconds of the same music at the end of a 5 minutes video! So for 4 seconds of a song, which should be well in fair-use rights, I can not see the video because of the GEMA.
So now I have no compassion with the Mafia and associated artists.
Put down copyright protection to about 20 years; remove the levy on blank media and pull down the DRM laws. Then we can talk again.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Further, if I were a small indie artist, and I wrote all my own music/songs/stories/whatever
Then some member of the music publishing cartel could sue you for having accidentally infringed on one of their songs. See Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music.
Right now every single work of "intellectual property" is easily available to anyone who knows a tiny bit about computers. So why would anyone pay for music/books/movies/games ever again?
The answer is because the individual with the money (the public) feels gratitude to the creators is willing to express that gratitude by expending resources. Control of the bits is no longer in the hands of a few.
I feel absolutely no guilt about not supporting those who profit from the creative process but have no hands involved in the creation of the product. If the creator has a way to support them directly then I'll do that. But I'm not going to support the "hangers on" of the creative process at the same time. My money isn't going to parasites like executives, shareholders, advertisers. And none for obsolete middlemen like retailers, publishers, and distributors.
Seems like page rank isn't that accurate then.
Alternatively they can give you the iTunes store page where you can see an artist and track name with a link to download iTunes next to it.
Last time I checked a database of how applications behave in a freely licensed reimplementation of the Windows API, iTunes would always fail to launch, complaining that it needed to be reinstalled. So Google would also have to give a link to buy a copy of genuine Microsoft Windows 8 on which to run iTunes in VirtualBox. Otherwise, the Whac-a-Mole game of blocking illicit music downloads would just be replaced with the Whac-a-Mole game of blocking illicit Windows operating system downloads.
Please paste a link to the iTunes web page that has this song available for sale.
Oh you can't?
Why not?
Oh.. iTunes isn't a website?
No wonder a WEB search engine doesn't have a WEB result for iTunes.
it is likely that it will be impossible to pirate a song, movie, or game.
I memorize a song and perform it in public. Or I memorize a song, record my performance of the same song, and distribute copies of the recording. Under current law, I have pirated the song. This reperformance hole goes even deeper than the analog reconversion hole. How would technology prevent it without giving absolute control to labels?
Step 1: Continue to push songs like "Call Me Maybe"
Step 2: People stop downloading the crap you are releasing
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
everybody else wrings their hands, or chases after users with no evidence but plenty of pistols blazing, but Microsoft actually is making some progress in taking down botnets. perhaps MS could sell their services to the MafIAA and shine a light into the darknet. it would probably cost them $1500 a song, but...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
the idea of going after the sites as a business, which in practice would mean strangling their (often voluminous) advertising budget.
So this would be another avenue of extrajudicial shutdowns of businesses accused of harming some other, more privileged business, that also has a financial relationship with the largest market-share search engine company, which would be executing the takedown. That doesn't sound like a just and free market to me. That sounds like plutocracy.
And before you say, "But maybe plutocracy would be good, maybe Google loves us and just wants us to be happy," consider this: Most superpower societies in history have bookended their dominance by evolving some close variant of plutocracy or oligarchy.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Seems like page rank isn't that accurate then.
That's just dumb! Page rank is based on web site visits and number of links. iTunes is an application, not a web site at all! It was Apple's choice to design it that way. If it was a web site, such as, say, Amazon's music site, then it could be ranked like any other page.
Now, if you search for iTunes, I'm sure the #1 ranked page will be the iTunes download site.
Showbiz is glamorous, and provides a constant stream of amusement and sexual favours for mid-level 'important' politicians, but is nothing compared to the real power-wielding industries that control and enrich the high-ranking politicians (you know, the ones that enter office 'penniless' and leave office hundreds of millions of dollars richer, like Al Gore). Showbiz generates the IP that piracy campaigns fret about, so in the scheme of things, the issue of piracy is NEVER that important to politicians in the first place.
Now combine this fact with the fact of the Internet as the greatest intelligence gathering asset imaginable. Google above all monitors in real time the thoughts of the 'mob', and delivers this infinitely precious resource to the masters that rule you. Throughout Human History, those that define themselves as the 'elite' have wrestled with only one real problem- how to control the masses that empowers them.
Disrupt casual piracy and you disrupt the effectiveness with which the Internet monitors and gathers information on the only group of people that really matter, the general population. Disrupt piracy and you please a bunch of corrupt amoral coke-heads that matter to no-one. Ironically, disrupting casual piracy is also seen to negatively affect the businesses producing the IP in the first place (in terms of growth of the market, and creation of new forms of marketing).
Google knows this better than any intelligence gathering organisation, which explains their constant stance on the issue. For instance, Google promotes its Youtube as an opportunity, not a problem- which runs completely counter to mainstream industry thinking on piracy.
People with disposable income like buying things. This is the key psychology of the capitalistic system. Piracy runs alongside this mechanism, not against it.
Anyway, Google is really saying "censor the Internet, and you'll destroy our ability to properly monitor the population of this planet, ruining our ability to give the elites the real-time information they crave to best influence/control the masses." Consider this analogous to past-times when the King's advisers would attempt to explain the problems of over-taxing the populace.
Maybe it's time for Google to be more symbiont and less parasite.
You can really say that in the same conversation which includes the "content" organizations who feed exclusively off the works of artists?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
What do you think in general about the torrent sites making money through advertising? It seems to be quite lucrative for some of them.
It isn't very accurate in cases like itunes where most of the access of the content is done not through a stand alone application, rather than a general purpose web browser. It ranks pages based on (amoung other things) their popularity on the web, which may well be different than their popularity through some other access method.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
...iTunes has not arranged itself a prominent position in the results ... which can't be completely Google's fault.
Apple must have forgot to tick the "Place my website prominently in Google's search results" check box on Google's mega-corp-website-settings.html page.
And already illegal in the US?
I mean...if I "know" my sister's boyfriend beat the crap out of her, and I go over and pound him into the dirt, I get arrested for committing a crime (battery or worse).
if I patrol the streets looking for crimes in action and jump in and beat the crap out of the criminal, I get arrested for committing a crime (battery the first time but eventually they will get to calling me a vigilante and press more serious charges). For taking the law into my own hands and acting as judge, jury and executioner.
How is this honestly any different? There are laws in place to handle this. There are agencies in place to handle this. But when those laws and agencies fail humans, well that's just too bad cause we don't have enough money or manpower to get to everyone, vote to increase taxes next time. However when they fail corporations, we're supposed to just let the businesses handle it themselves? That's pretty much BS and needs to stop.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/carly-rae-jepsen/id284363062 Granted, this is iTunes so you'll never get an HTTP download, but if you're OK with buying something on iTunes it's probably a safe bet that you have it installed.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
https://itunes.apple.com/au/tv-season/game-of-thrones-season-1/id441216387
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/call-me-maybe-single/id465744617
Know how I found those? I used bing and searched for "itunes call me maybe" and "itunes game of thrones". I imagine google could do the same.
"A test performed by musician David Lowery confirmed that a search for Carly Rae Jepsen's 'Call Me Maybe' conjured up a list of unlicensed sites..."
How exactly is he a trusted source for who does and who does not have a license to distribute copyrighted material that he did not write or produce and does not himself own? He's not even on the same label as Jepsen. As another poster pointed out, does anyone ask Apple to see the agreement they have to distribute a song before buying it on iTunes? Does anyone ever ask a brick and mortar store to show proof that they can legally sell a CD?
It's absurd to just assume that people are doing something illegal and then shut them down without any proof or oversight whatsoever.
Although, more interestingly, did anyone do another search to see how much money that incredibly banal song made despite the supposed negative affects of alleged pirating?
... I think it's time to bring back the concepts of privateer, and letters of marque and reprisal.
How much money you have is not relevant to how much money you WANT or think you need. If anything, it is highly likely somebody who has a lot of money has an ADDICTION to the acquisition of money. Take some away and they'll be extremely upset but their addiction (greed) will not be cured, they'll go right back to trying to make as much as possible - just like smokers, drinkers, and other addicts. If anything, taking the addicted item away motivates them MORE.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Then watch as we all go dark(net)
Free speech tomorrow.. and there was no one left to speak for me.
Please paste a link to the iTunes web page that has this song available for sale.
Oh you can't?
Why not?
Oh.. iTunes isn't a website?
No wonder a WEB search engine doesn't have a WEB result for iTunes.
This modded Insightful?!?!
Thanks for confirming my suspicion that most posters and moderators in /. never used any Apple products yet happily bash away based on their imagination.
Piracy caused the death of silent films.
"I imagine google could do the same."
It can, and for me at least, it does.
The thing is though when I do the search terms without sticking iTunes in front I get far more useful results. For Call Me Maybe I get the YouTube copy of the song and that sort of thing and for Game of Thrones I get the official site.
This is why the AC(s) above are stupid, they're assuming Google is a search engine for iTunes content, obviously it's not, that's stupid. It's a search engine to find you the most relevant results and what's more relevant to a user? A link to a site where you can download and install a not exactly tiny application and go through a sign up process and enter your card details to buy a copy of Call Me Maybe or a direct link to the music video of the song where you can watch and listen to it by doing nothing more than clicking the link?
The fact is, as much as Apple fanboys like to think otherwise, iTunes web results just aren't even close to being the most relevant result for these sorts of search terms so Google is doing the exact right thing - it's linking to the places where users can get the most relevant content to the search in the easiest manner. The most obvious way for iTunes to increase it's ranking based on normal searches without "iTunes" put in front of the search query is to offer the content in an equally direct manner from a search result because an indirect manner that requires downloading of a 3rd party app followed by sign up and so forth is never going to make for a better search result than a direct link to the content itself - even if Apple required a login and let you stay logged in on the iTunes site to stream it over the web they'd get much more highly ranked but they wont do that because they primarily use iTunes to sell devices and because of that they suffer in the rankings but that's their choice, not that it's doing them any harm given the profits.
So really no one's to blame as such, Apple's doing what it wants with iTunes, and Google is ranking it sensibly in the results. The BPI is just asking for Apple to be given special treatment, which is grossly anti-competitive (because those who do offer easier access to content directly via the web - i.e. that offer more relevant links to search users suffer) and worsens the user experience when using Google search.