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."

Comments

Nevermind the blocking

[fustakrakich]

The question is how to circumvent it..

Re:Nevermind the blocking

[Hatta]

Darknets. Tor, Freenet, Waste, Retroshare. Something along those lines.

Re:Nevermind the blocking

[Bearhouse]

Here's the Sex Pistols!

https://www.google.com/search?q=Never+Mind+the+Bollocks%2C+Here's+the+Sex+Pistols+torrent

Re:Nevermind the blocking

[xvan]

It's interesting thing is that google highlighted some DMCA complains, that directed me to sites where I was able to download the whole album without torrenting.

Re:Nevermind the blocking

[davester666]

Love how the summary implies that Apple is at least partially to blame for pirate sites being ranked so high because they aren't paying Google to move iTunes links to the top.

Of course, wouldn't this kind of promotion [advertising links to their music] fall more under the labels purview, you know, as part of the budget to promote every artist on their roster...

Google has power to render Google worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Google has power to render Google worthless

[Macgrrl]

Let's see..... all that we got left is sports scores and taxidermy blogs.

You mean like this?

Search engines

[Endimiao]

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..

Re:Search engines

[king neckbeard]

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.

Re:Search engines

[John Napkintosh]

So no one should develop technologies for legitimate applications because they could potentially be used for nefarious purposes?

Re:Search engines

[Nikker]

I guess it's a good thing that Google is the only online advertiser and no other ad company would be willing to pick up the slack.

Re:Search engines

[Jockle]

That's exactly their logic in wanting to destroy these websites, yes.

Re:Search engines

[reve_etrange]

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."

Re:Search engines

[shentino]

Not enough censorship or campaign dollars will make the feds stomp on google and look the other way at everyone else.

Re:Search engines

[Hadlock]

See also: Slippery Slope Argument
 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

Re:Search engines

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly their logic in wanting to destroy these websites, yes.

It also appears to be our logic in wanting to destroy these new technologies. "If it can ever possibly be used to break our subculture, it should be destroyed!" starts to get classified as "hypocrisy" when we're crying foul at "If it can ever possibly be used to break our business model, it should be destroyed!".

Re:Search engines

[Migraineman]

How the hell is Google (or anyone else) going to keep up with millions-a-week infringement notices?

“[Google] know very well what sites are illegal, because we send them notices, a million a week, yet coming on to search, very often those sites appear at the top of search results,” he said.

Further, if I were a small indie artist, and I wrote all my own music/songs/stories/whatever, will Google et al pay attention to me as well as the big media cartels? I doubt an infringement notice sent from a gmail account will carry much weight. How would Google distinguish real takedown requests from the joe jobs? It's not like we have a giant library with congressional oversight to act as a central repository ....

Re:Search engines

[Migraineman]

While the recording and movie industries are clearly pro-blocking, Google believes the issue can be dealt with by starving pirate sites of advertising revenue, something that should be handled by the advertisers themselves. All they have to do is provide a list of sites where ads shouldn’t appear.

“It’s not Google’s job to go around the web to declare whether sites are legal or illegal, but if Coca-Cola comes to us and says here’s a list of 500 dynamic sites and we don’t want you to place ads on those, that’s a slightly different thing. It’s almost a marketing thing for the brand,” [Mr. Bertram, UK policy manager of Google] said.

Mr. Bertram needs to go review the definitions for "proxy" and "redirect".

Re:Search engines

[NatasRevol]

They could call it google +

Re:Search engines

[trum4n]

Racecars don't need license plates in most events.

Re:Search engines

[Jockle]

It also appears to be our logic in wanting to destroy these new technologies.

No. History has proven time and time again that people with power will most likely abuse it, so allowing people with power to have unchecked power is just foolish.

Re:Search engines

[Jockle]

Straw man? Check.

Re:Search engines

[Znork]

There are many such search engines already. The technology certainly exists to both make them close to free to run through partial or full distribution. And the free copying crowd certainly is vastly beyond large enough to finance a whole ecosystem of services and sites without a large economic input from outside sources. With the expansion of cryptographic currencies it's also certain that applying any pressure through the payment systems will only result in a more rapid expansion of uncontrollable credit systems (which will result in utterly screwing the last 50 years of anti-laundering work which may actually be more serious than the pissant whining copyright industry).

And seriously, as TFA suggested, guilting advertisers out of appearing on piracy sites? A small sampling of such advertisers will most likely indicate that advertising on piracy sites would be the least offensive part of their business.

Re:Search engines

[Anonymous Coward]

How is blocking ad revenue from sites distributing content without the appropriate license "too much censorship"? It's the correct approach. Or would you argue you should be free to profit from the operation of planes, trains, or automobiles ( or truck) without an the appropriate license?

Google is supposed to be a search engine. You search for what's out there. It's not supposed to be a promotional platform for people to advertise on. It's not supposed to be a site where you only get a list of officially approved web locations. It's just supposed to save you the time of hunting shit down for yourself.

If Google wants to start blocking ad revenue from "infringing" sites, then they must first implement some type of audit mechanism to determine if a site contains any content it's not supposed to. Vague statements like "Google has the tech" don't help, what is this undefined "tech" they have? Some kind of magical mind-reading device that can scan people's intentions and cross-reference with copyright and other IP registration services, and perform media checks for any and all infringing permutations of material? If they had that, they'd be taking it to the bank already.

Re:Search engines

[sconeu]

Microsoft and it's proxies say hello.

Re:Search engines

[aled]

Frankly, the threat to free speech and stifling of technology is orders of magnitude more important, even from a purely financial perspective.

Free speech? Mmmh if someone could monetize on that... Just saying...

Re:Search engines

[rwise2112]

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.

Re:Search engines

[ganjadude]

thats the logic used against guns.

Re:Search engines

[ganjadude]

the problem with this approach is it would allow anyone to "buy search placement" not just for good but for bad as well. And frankly, If I do a search on something I want the best possible result, not the "approved by XX" result.

Re:Search engines

[jedidiah]

Except it's no fallacy. In Common Law, we have another name for the slippery slope. It's called precident. Slippery slopes are how our entire legal system works.

Re:Search engines

[jedidiah]

Your point being what exactly?

Guns don't harm me. Idiot neighbors harm me. It doesn't matter if it's guns, slavish devotion to the idea of an HOA, or the fact that they don't train their dogs.

While mildly annoying, my current neighbors are nothing nearly as bad as the kind of idiots that inhabit the crime ridden neighborhoods where you're actually likely to get shot.

Poverty breeds much more dangerous idiots.

Re:Search engines

[ganjadude]

my point is the same argument you made is the same argument anti gun people use to try and ban guns. thats all

Re:Search engines

[sjames]

Accurately determining who has a legal right to distribute something is apparently too hard of a problem. We have seen companies laying claim to birdsong recorded in the forrest and other people's lectures for example. We have seen media companies upload videos themselves and then threaten legal action if they aren't removed.

Unless or until we can figure out how to make sure that only the legitimate licensor is making the decisions and that those decisions reflect reality and the law, we should not have anything like an automated system.

Re:Search engines

[drsmithy]

How is blocking ad revenue from sites distributing content without the appropriate license "too much censorship"?
How should the determination of "appropriate licensing" be made ?
Based on the country the website is in ?
Based on the country the searcher is in ?
Based on the country the search engine is in ?

Re:Search engines

[oreiasecaman]

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

This is the part that annoys me the most. Why the folks at MAFIAA think they are entitled anyone else's money and time? Why it should be anyone else's obligation to further raise the obscene amount of money they already make?

Re:Search engines

[tlambert]

How is blocking ad revenue from sites distributing content without the appropriate license "too much censorship"? It's the correct approach. Or would you argue you should be free to profit from the operation of planes, trains, or automobiles ( or truck) without an the appropriate license?

Pilots licenses were not mandatory in the US until 1917, following a Massachusetts state law in 1913, so for planes, at least, the answer was "yes", for 10 years.

For trains, it's controlled by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which is a division of the teamsters union, and it's handled through an apprenticeship program, starting with conductor, then brakeman, ... all the way to engineer. The first railroad, the B&O (Baltimore and Ohio) was opened in 1830, and it wasn't until the 1880's that certification was enforced (after the strikes against the railroads and the Pullman Palace Car Company). Certification was adopted as a defensive reaction to the Pinkertons hired to put down the strikes (violently, with man deaths), since it meant that non-union "scabs" might be brought in, but they would still not be able to legally operate the trains. So for 50 years, the answer for trains was "yes".

Automobile licenses were not required from 1886, when Benz created the first internal combustion engine, until 1888; this was mostly because the people of Mannheim complained about the noise and smell, and the license was technically from the Dutchy, and not actually a license. In North America, there were state laws in 1910 (New York) and 1913 (New Jersey - the first state to require passing a test). So in the US, the answer was "yes", for over 20 years.

So, licenses serve two purposes: (1) prevent other people from entering the field, so as to raise the relative value of the labor allowed to operate in the field, and ensure collective bargaining power for those allowed to participate, and (2) as a revenue mechanism for the state.

The public safety argument is relatively moot, as raising the speed limit from 55 back to it's pre-Jan 2nd 1972 limits (or higher in some areas) has demonstrated (the limit was imposed due to the "energy crisis" at the time, not for public safety, and kept because it was a pretty nice cash cow for a lot of local governments). Highway deaths are inversely proportional to the effectiveness of vehicle safety systems, and not speed limit.

Practically speaking, you're better off letting people get into accidents, and then penalizing them after the fact for causing the accident. Several studies on red light cameras have demonstrated this, since people see a yellow light and slam on their brakes to avoid a red light camera ticket -- which in California can not be appealed unless you can demonstrate that the yellow light at the intersection in question lasts less than 4.8 seconds. This because some municipalities were speeding up the yellow lights to increase red light camera ticket revenue.

So yeah, there's a lot of things you should be able to do without a license, like operating a hot dog cart, for which licenses are required, but actually do nothing.

I'm reminded of when my driver's license was stolen; I went to the DMV to get them to reissue a new on, and asked for a different number. They wouldn't give me one, even with a police report, until I squawked up to a supervisor. It's the same number with a 'B". But considered in retrospect, did their issuing the new number and invalidating the old one stop the thief from using the license as identification? No. They got someone who looked like me to place a mail hold at the post office, with the intent of picking up my mail, including credit card and other statements, as well as credit card issued based on identity theft at a later date. I missed getting my mail two days in a row when I was expecting a letter, which is how I found out. The point of this story is that a driver's license does nothing for me, including legally identify me, unless the

Re:Search engines

[king neckbeard]

It's not really a technological development, as Google has the means to not pay plenty of people. I know I have not been paid by Google, so it's very effective.. The concern here is a matter of policy. Technology is neither good nor evil, but the same doesn't apply to policy. Policies advocating censorship are a particularly grave concern.

Re:Search engines

[king neckbeard]

Except, as I said in the other reply, this isn't a proposed technological change in any significant way.

Re:Search engines

[Hentes]

Google's strength is in their gigantic database, there's no other search engine that can replicate that.

Re:Search engines

[TubeSteak]

Unless or until we can figure out how to make sure that only the legitimate licensor is making the decisions and that those decisions reflect reality and the law, we should not have anything like an automated system.

Enforce that whole "under penalty of perjury" clause.
That won't solve the problem, but it'll sure as shit remove any incentive for the **AAs to blast out mass notices with no human oversight.

Re:Search engines

[brit74]

Indeed. And if we allow police to have guns, there's no telling what they'll do with them. I'm sure they'll create gulags and prison camps for the American public. We must not allow police to have guns! /sarcasm.

See also: slippery slope argument.

Re:Search engines

[sjames]

There are way too many ways to weasel out of purjury to permit an automated system. For example, an "honest mistake" is an out and terribly hard to disprove unless you require a specific human legal review and specify minimum checks that must be performed (actually download the offered file and view it for example).

Re:Search engines

[AmiMoJo]

So, licenses serve two purposes: (1) prevent other people from entering the field, so as to raise the relative value of the labor allowed to operate in the field, and ensure collective bargaining power for those allowed to participate, and (2) as a revenue mechanism for the state.

In the case of cars and aircraft it is to ensure they are operated safely. If you want to fling tonnes of metal around at high speed society requires you to demonstrate your ability to do it without injuring others first.

Re:Search engines

[nmr_andrew]

One could always keep track of how many "honest mistakes" are made when sending out DMCA notices. Anything over a few percent they're either lying or grossly incompetent.

Re:Search engines

[sjames]

And there's the problem, gross incompetence is not a crime (perhaps unfortunately).

iTunes? What's that?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...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.

iTunes

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re:iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

For now.

Re:iTunes

[John Napkintosh]

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.

Re:iTunes

[game kid]

The truckload of validation errors in iTunes web pages (to continue down the Call Me Maybe path, I checked the page for the album) don't help. The page has all the keywords it would need and is fairly well structured, so any search-placement improvements would have to come from valid HTML and fetid SEO.

But yeah, Google and friends can treat that problem by calling up Apple and negotiating to link iTunes directly to the crawler, something like how Google and Adobe got all loveydovey and *wham* now Google can read Flash. (I said treat; the cure would be to make the song files downloadable from the page, if for a fee, and be done with the whole RIAA love and general non-webbyness of iTunes and whatnot.)

Re:iTunes

[spire3661]

It never occured to me until now, but forcing downloading through Itunes is INCREDIBLY short sighted. It is this kind of hubris that will allow the competitors to consume Apple eventually.

Re:iTunes

[Registered Coward v2]

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.

I am not sure Apple would gain anything buy paying to push iTunes. They have a pretty good market already with users predisposed to going there for music so as dollars would add no revenue hike raising costs. Since iTunes is device specific to a large extent the chance that someone who doesn't know about it becoming a customer is also small, so advertising makes no sense to draw in customers. So it is not surprising Apple ignores Google searches.

Re:iTunes

[madwheel]

Exactly. Apple has the resources to increase their web presence for music exposure. It would certainly suggest for more people to use their music over other possibly illegitimate sources. I don't mind Google's response to the whack a mole situation either. It seems highly logical.

Re:iTunes

[AmiMoJo]

Google's aim is to give you what you want as quickly and easily as possible. They can give you an Amazon page where you can click to listen to samples of tracks immediately or simply buy the MP3s/CD in a few clicks. 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.

What I'm saying is that it's no wonder you rarely see iTunes store results on Google because they are rarely what you were looking for when searching. You don't want to download iTunes, you want to listen to or buy the music.

Re:iTunes

[UnknownSoldier]

> I am not sure Apple would gain anything buy paying to push iTunes.

Considering that YouTube is already starting to show links for music to iTunes, Amazon, etc. one would assume that they are simply tapping into another market -- the ability to just purchase the dam song(s) used in the video. There have been many videos that have interesting music but I have no clue who the artist is/was.

Re:iTunes

[hondo77]

iTunes is already the largest music retailer in the world by far. Why does Apple need to further "increase their web presence"?

Re:iTunes

[dkf]

the dam song(s)

What?

"I'm big and wooden, yo ho ho,
Made by beavers, in the snow,
I hold back water, now you know,
I'm a happy dam, restraining the flow!"

Not quite a top ten hit I think...

Re:iTunes

[UnknownSoldier]

Just needs a looped trance beat and you might have a shot. Hell, it worked for the Gummy Bear song ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=astISOttCQ0

Re:iTunes

[Eugriped3z]

Why would Apple feed Google when they already own the most affluent consumers? The faithful pay a premium for Apple's superior interface, consistent experience and assurance that when there's an update, it's actually an improvement. Aside from which iTunes may not be perfect but it performs everything anyone needs it do without having to leave the farm, scrutinize a haystack of search result or wonder if you're going to download a virus, receive a notice of indiscretion from one's ISP or end up with a file that was planted by the RIAA to corrupt a file sharing database.

Aside from that, Google's no panacea for the average user. For example, I waited til Jelly Bean was available on the Android phone I waited to buy, just so I could avoid the pain of early adoption. And when I 'upgraded' from Ice Cream Sandwich to Jelly Bean, T-Mobiles ironically named Sense service broke Apps and Widgets alike. One of the most useful Widgets was actually engineered by the same developers responsible for maintaining the Sense update system, itself. Such discourtesy only leaves me scratching my head. To top it off, there's no rollback option.

Google may have opened up another profit center, but as a user who doesn't really want to waste time with issues like this, my experience has only added to my admiration for Apple and diminished the credibility quotient I apply to Google.

This experience has only solidified my respect for Apple and my belief that the most successful catering to the least common denominator among UX designers usually leaves the average user at a disadvantage. Apple has less than nothing to gain from depending on search when the experience they provide is superior.

Re:iTunes

[vlueboy]

Annoyingly, it's PAINFULLY similar with web searches that lead you to the android app store...

I manage several android devices but only one has my google account. To download additional copies of free App X through my PC, they won't link me to the file to redistribute at my leisure. Naaah! the site asks for my google ID. This gives concrete knowledge to google to examine my ID's* and devices as a cluster. Success here means that they push the App UP thru the cloud rather than down to me. I must root the phone to extract the APK app from the invisible /system/ folder for my other devices AFAIK. After a few more hoops are jumped to side-load the file into other phones.

Contrast that to how easy it is to download .deb or .rpm packages from official AND hobbyist repositories for stuff like mp3 encoding / decoding... even when a distro fears pressures from US lawyers. In comparison, Android market feels oppressive when google chooses where you can use their downloads. I failed to mention earlier that google can reject your download for whatever reason** after they know your google ID.

* Your other google identities AND those of relatives who never connected to your Wifi thanks to separate 3G/4G plans
** For instance, those of us with ancient [version N] phones when your App is only available for [N+1]. Google won't let us bear the "risks" . Their browser hides devices for which the app is officially unsupported. Today's publishers and distributors inspect us, refuse our rights, and pull downloads after the fact.

Re:iTunes

[jrumney]

Not just iTunes - I don't see any sign of Amazon, 7-digital or Google Music in the first few pages of search results either.

Re:iTunes

[NoMaster]

Because the trolling submitter or /.'s so-called "editors" needed to put an "Apple bad!" slant on what amounts to a "'Google isn't helping us', cry music industry shills" non-story?

what's the point of itunes in search results?

[alen]

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.

Re:what's the point of itunes in search results?

[spire3661]

Because not everyone has itunes installed or has a iDevice. Dont you think it a little strange they cant figure out how to sell 5MB files through a webpage?

Re:what's the point of itunes in search results?

[alen]

i don't know, i never buy via itunes for my iphone. my wife likes it because you buy and it automatically adds it to your library

i usually buy via Amazon but with spotify there is very little reason to buy music anymore

Re:what's the point of itunes in search results?

[mmcxii]

Amazon does it just fine.

Re:what's the point of itunes in search results?

[tepples]

Because Apple has made a business decision to decline to port iTunes to X11/Linux, to Android, or to a standards-based web application.

Re:what's the point of itunes in search results?

[fisted]

equivalently:
> my wife likes it because you buy and then you sort of have it.
wow.

You can't block it now.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:You can't block it now.

[neminem]

Thanks a bloody lot for getting that song stuck in my head. (Well, getting an awesome old mashup of it stuck in my head, anyway. So actually, thanks! It's an excellent mashup.)

War Profits

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than fight potential customers by creating a new, inherently slimy industry, how about coming up with a way to engage them.

Re:War Profits

[interval1066]

I'm a little curious to see how the music industry reacts to the next disruptive (to their business model) technology. You know something new will come down the pike soon.

Re:War Profits

[SuperTechnoNerd]

They will try to control it.. Or kill it.. With help from our bought government.
What do you think?

Re:War Profits

[interval1066]

Point being- can they reach a point where they just have to give up? I do believe at some point the world will look at the labels and say "SHUT UP", but I wonder if they realize it.

Re:War Profits

[wisnoskij]

No, SuperTechnoNerd is right.
The world is different now. The consumer recording VCR, or DVD "backup" regulations and software are simply something that could never be invented in this society. Corporations are on the lookout for inventions and laws and would take control away from them and they are 100% in a position to stop every single one.

In 20 years not only will there not new a more freeing inventions that invalidate labels or take control away from them, but it is likely that it will be impossible to pirate a song, movie, or game.

Really?

[Maximum Prophet]

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.

Re: Really?

[Therad]

and also would take the blame if noninfringing sites are blocked. they want the cookie and eat it.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how do you know which sites are legitimate or not? Have you read the license which allows iTunes to distribute a particular copyright? Has Google been allowed to view this agreement? The Pirate Bay has even distributed legitimate material according to them and a supposedly artist site. How is one to know what is or what isn't?

Re:Really?

[Score Whore]

Quite often in society people are told that they cannot engage in certain lines of business because the associated externalities cannot be mitigated. The question that should be asked, and may be trivially answered 'yes', is whether what Google provides outweighs the negative impact on third parties. If it turns out that Google can't mitigate the negative externalities then perhaps Google should be shut down. Or perhaps they should just have to pay a portion of their revenue to the people who are harmed by Google's practices. It wouldn't be the first time such things had to happen, for example power plants, oil drilling and refining, farming (fertilizer run-off), etc.

Re:Really?

[Jockle]

You bring up a good point. To prevent the unauthorized copying of certain information (which results in certain companies not gaining money when they believe they should, which is just horrible and sad), Google and the Internet must be destroyed. Collective punishment is good, and your comparisons are even better. Such genius!

Re:Really?

[AmiMoJo]

I have the ability to stomp on Geoff Taylor's face, but that doesn't mean I should do it. I tend to be quite careful about whose face I stomp on, even if it means my face stomping rate is severely limited.

Re:iTunes? What's that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Page ranking isn't based on music downloads or sales. Go be dense somewhere else. Please.

Maybe they'll finally realize...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Maybe they'll finally realize...

[SuperTechnoNerd]

Ya, about as successful as "the war on drugs"

Re:Maybe they'll finally realize...

[Anonymous Coward]

No price beats free. Anyone who honestly felt that there was a viable business model to fighting online piracy they'd have done it.

Re:Maybe they'll finally realize...

[reve_etrange]

The war on drugs was extremely successful. As planned, it created a massive free labor population, funneled drug money directly to law enforcement and created more business for lawyers and gun dealers. Ruining the lives of dissident youth was just a happy coincidence.

Re:Maybe they'll finally realize...

[steveg]

If all you're selling is the bits, you're right.

They need to figure out some sort of value added, which probably involves something physical.

Extra-judicial action

[Okian Warrior]

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?

Re:Extra-judicial action

[Gavagai80]

Any company can pick and choose who to do business with. Any website can ban you, including slashdot. Any physical store can order you to leave and not come back. A "customer bill of rights" which states that a company cannot just cut off customers at will would be utterly disastrous, being able to choose and refuse customers is fundamental to doing any sort of business.

David Lowery, panderer

[reve_etrange]

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.

Cheapskates?

[benjfowler]

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.

Re:Cheapskates?

[DerekLyons]

Just so you know, the issue isn't AdWords - it's searches that yield pirate sites as top hits, pirate sites that happen to display Google advertising. (Which may, or may not be music ads as the displayed ads are a combination of page related and user specific ads.)
 
That being said, it's ridiculous to expect rights holders to have to pay pirates.

Re:Cheapskates?

[gl4ss]

Just so you know, the issue isn't AdWords - it's searches that yield pirate sites as top hits, pirate sites that happen to display Google advertising. (Which may, or may not be music ads as the displayed ads are a combination of page related and user specific ads.)

That being said, it's ridiculous to expect rights holders to have to pay pirates.

very few of those sites actually use google advertising because google advertising bans them.

so it's kind of a moot point. that's why torrent sites tend to have whack-a-mole adverts(literally!) because they have to go with the 3rd tier advert providers.

Re:iTunes? What's that?

[crypticedge]

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.

Own site?

[devent]

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.

Re:Own site?

[Jockle]

Better idea: get rid of copyright.

Re:Own site?

[Minwee]

Without any trouble I can just download the song. Why can't the MAfia do a site like that?

You may be in the wrong country. These complaints are coming from the British Pornographic Industry, not the Music And Film Industry of America.

Accidental infringement

[tepples]

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.

Re:itunes fault?

[X0563511]

It's more like the phone directory.

If you don't publish your number in the appropriate services section, you can't complain when other plumbers get all the business, can you?

the era of people paying gatekeepers is over

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:the era of people paying gatekeepers is over

[neminem]

Funnily enough, sites like bandcamp and cdbaby profit from the creative process but have no hands involved in the creation of the product, too. Yet, I have absolutely no issue buying from those sites, nor even occasionally from itunes (which is far less indie). The difference being that they aren't skeezy or anti-consumer, and don't take the vast majority of the cut that should go to the artist.

A certain small amount of middle-manning is often necessary (an artist isn't necessarily good at non-artist-related activities, and in any case should only spend so much of their time doing those things if you want them to continue giving you the art you like.) I am always the happiest when I can contribute 100% of the profit directly to the person or people who created the work, but even if *most* of the profit goes to those people, I'm happy enough. (Which is good, since I usually pay by credit card, and I gather they generally take a couple percent off the top, too...)

Advertising, too, is not always bad. It's just bad when artists are *forced* to pay for advertising, have no say in what kind of advertising is being done where, or the worst, when they're promised advertising (with the money they're being forced to pay to the label they signed to), but never even receive any of note.

Re:the era of people paying gatekeepers is over

[devent]

How about the hard work to setup a site and offer those works?
It's hard enough as it is, as only iTunes and Amazon done it yet.
It's hard work to create the music; it's hard work as well to distribute and promote the music. Otherwise artists wouldn't sign up with publishers. The MAFIAA and other associations for example are unable to create such sites.

It would be very easy for the MAFIAA to create a download site with music and movies and get the ads revenue and subscribing revenue and distribute that revenue to the artists.

Re:the era of people paying gatekeepers is over

[neminem]

> It would be very easy for the MAFIAA to create a download site with music and movies and get the ads revenue and subscribing revenue and keep 99.99% for themselves.

Fixed that for you... I'd rather they didn't. That way maybe eventually they'll actually die eventually.

Re:the era of people paying gatekeepers is over

[organgtool]

As an artist with songs available for download, let me be the first to say that iTunes is skeevy - very skeevy. Apple makes it very difficult to sell your music on iTunes. To start, you have to have a working Mac capable of running the latest OS version, at least 20 albums in your catalog, UPCs/EANs/JANs for all products you intend to distribute, ISRCs for all tracks you intend to distribute, a U.S. Tax ID, and a valid iTunes Store account with a credit card on file. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I received a copyright violation from them just for copying that list of data off of their web site. In addition to that, the artist receives absolutely no money until they "meet payment requirements and earning thresholds in each territory".

As a result of this, many indie artists have to hire third parties to post their content on iTunes. Most of those third parties don't pay out until the sales of your products reach their own thresholds. To make things even worse, artists have no way to verify that the sales figures reported by the third parties are accurate, so it is relatively easy for them to get away with under-reporting sales of your albums and underpaying you.

For all these reasons, and many more, my band has said "fuck you" to Apple and instead we direct fans to our merch on CDBaby and BandCamp. Not only that, but those sites do more to refer new listeners to our products than Apple does for any small-time band.

Re:the era of people paying gatekeepers is over

[neminem]

Wow. That is pretty dumb. I knew about the Mac thing (which is dumb by itself; Cracked made fun of them a few weeks ago for that), and the "you can't sell singles if you don't have albums" (a musician I love recently arbitrarily broke his large catalog into chronological "albums" solely for the purpose of putting them on itunes, and then complained about it), but not all of that. I prefer buying on bandcamp or cdbaby just because it's easier for me, too, as someone who doesn't use itunes for anything other than buying songs off itunes and then immediately moving them, but I hadn't realized they were that annoying for sellers.

I still bet you they'd beat the pants off anything a major record label would create themselves, though.

iTunes costs $88 according to Wine AppDB

[tepples]

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.

Re:iTunes costs $88 according to Wine AppDB

[Minwee]

You're assuming that it would behave better when installed on a genuine copy of Windows 8.

Re:iTunes? What's that?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Reperformance hole

[tepples]

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?

Re:Reperformance hole

[wisnoskij]

And what makes you think that they will not have Youtube like (but 100 times more advanced) software that monitors all consumer recording devices?
And what makes you think that the government does not listen to every single word you utter in public, if not also in private?

Re:Reperformance hole

[tepples]

And what makes you think that they will not have Youtube like (but 100 times more advanced) software that monitors all consumer recording devices?

You mention a 20-year time frame for this to take effect. As a hobby, I develop software for a 30-year-old video game platform. So good luck stopping the trade in pre-ban consumer recording devices. And good luck storing the entire database of every song ever published on a device with no cellular subscription.

Re:Reperformance hole

[wisnoskij]

Well it would obviously have to follow the trend of always online, upload everything to a server.

Re:Reperformance hole

[oreiasecaman]

If you don't own the server, you don't own anything you uploaded there

Another Solution

[ab0mb88]

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!

so far, the only solution seems to be Microsoft

[swschrad]

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...

Extrajudicial Takedowns by Plutarchs

[Bob9113]

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.

You're kidding, right?

[Overzeetop]

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?

Re:iTunes? What's that?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

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.

It's that easy

[Time_Ngler]

...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.

Re:iTunes? What's that?

[newcastlejon]

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.

Re:iTunes? What's that?

[Score Whore]

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.

Re:Torrent site advertising

[gl4ss]

What do you think in general about the torrent sites making money through advertising? It seems to be quite lucrative for some of them.

Plastered full of ads != lucrative.

Since we call them pirates ...

[John Jorsett]

... I think it's time to bring back the concepts of privateer, and letters of marque and reprisal.

"Having money" is not realistic - you always need

[bussdriver]

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.

Re:iTunes? What's that?

[Xest]

"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.