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Google's View On the Whac-a-Mole of Blocking Pirate Sites

Posted by Unknown on from the missing-the-point dept.

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."

8 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Search engines by Endimiao · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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..

    1. Re:Search engines by king+neckbeard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Once the mechanism for blocking is in place, it will be used for other purposes. It will also be used for gray or edge cases as a means of further stomping out innovators that would compete with the status quo. Frankly, the threat to free speech and stifling of technology is orders of magnitude more important, even from a purely financial perspective.

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    2. Re:Search engines by reve_etrange · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Especially because the "financial perspective" is that piracy results in a slight increase in label profits. Unfortunately, folks like David Lowery have "financial" confused with "ideological."

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      .: Semper Absurda :.
    3. Re:Search engines by rwise2112 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Why should Google have to maintain a list of which site has permission to host content legally? How do they know what content is distributable or not? We certainly know that the RIAA/MPAA have certainly not been perfect in their identification of media.

      Also, I'm pretty sure Google would be required to do this at their own expense.

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      "For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
  2. Really? by Maximum+Prophet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
  3. Re:iTunes by John+Napkintosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, downloads happen through iTunes, but it would still behoove Apple to point searches for songs to iTunes in some way, even if through some intermediary that launches iTunes to actually make the download.

    Which is probably why Google were surprised that Apple is not already doing so. Not that that has anything at all to do with copyright infringement.

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  4. David Lowery, panderer by reve_etrange · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    .: Semper Absurda :.
  5. Cheapskates? by benjfowler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.