Google Changes 'To Fight Piracy' By Highlighting Legal Sites

mrspoonsi writes Google has announced changes to its search engine in an attempt to curb online piracy. The company has long been criticised for enabling people to find sites to download entertainment illegally. The entertainment industry has argued that illegal sites should be "demoted" in search results. The new measures, mostly welcomed by music trade group the BPI, will instead point users towards legal alternatives such as Spotify and Google Play. Google will now list these legal services in a box at the top of the search results, as well as in a box on the right-hand side of the page. Crucially, however, these will be adverts — meaning if legal sites want to appear there, they will need to pay Google for the placement.

Comments

So really what's happening is that...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Google isn't going to change anything, just charge legal sites to place their ads on piracy searches.

Good on you Google for exploiting this for profit. 'Murika!

Re:So really what's happening is that...

[JonahsDad]

What I want to know is: If a piracy site wants to pay to place their ads in this box, will Google allow it?

Re:Is Google Losing It?

[ameen.ross]

And what makes you thing Bing doesn't have to obey EU laws when it does business in the EU? The situation with Bing could in fact be even more dire than with Google. Duckduckgo will be closer to the real thing.

Re:google is a search engine

[meustrus]

Google is not an agnostic search system. Google is the king of search, and everyone is trying to hack around their algorithms to boost their search rankings. Is it really so terrible that Google itself should be outright asked to prefer search results that are "better for society"?

Don't get me wrong. I want a truly agnostic search engine. Badly. I want to be able to find the best source for what I'm looking for, not a couple dozen support forums with great SEO and an actual honest-to-goodness answer buried on page 47 of the search results. Google used to be the closest we could get to that, but that was a long time ago. Now they're basically a public utility, much like the internet itself. Although since so many people are stealing from it and its customers, I'd say it's more like cable TV.

Yeah, Good Luck with That (TM)

[UnknownSoldier]

When "piracy" became hijacked from meaning the naval context, copying was rampant. In the 80's as kids we couldn't afford all the games so we (illegally) shared them. Hell, I got into computers simply because it was a fun challenge to "krack" software. In the 90's In college/university we used BBS's, FSP (how many know about _that_ protocol!!), FTP with hidden directories containing control characters, IRC with XDCC, binary newsgroup with split .RARs., in 2000's we used Torrents and/or P2P such as Emule, etc. It wasn't until years later did we learn that piracy = lack of respect for the author's distribution. As adults we buy things because we want to support the author(s) to produce more. And if it is crap we vote with our wallet -- and tell others to not buy it.

What is kind of ironic and completely counter-intuitive is that those who pirate tend to spend more but that is a discussion for another day. (Part of the problem is that certain "assets" are not even available to be legally purchased, etc.)

IMHO Piracy begins AND ends with education. Futurama's Bender made fun of this "archaic philosophy" that "Sharing is illegal" by joking "You wouldn't steal X, right? Or would I !" meme along with the popular "You wouldn't download car?" Because most people are able to separate the issue from money vs freedom. i.e. Artists want to share their creations. Consumers want to share those same creations -- that is what culture does -- preserves "popular" art in whatever medium. Unfortunately the context behind those same reason's don't always sync up. You have bands like The Who who don't care about "bootlegging"; other sellout bands like Metallica that only care about the money and could care less if fans help "market" the band.

Kids these day's aren't stupid. They are questing the status quo that: "Why is illegal sharing illegal? Because of arbitrary financial reasons??" id software created the shareware model -- give part of the game away for free, customers can spend money to buy the rest. These days Humble Bundles let people pay what they want. IMHO this is the correct way to do things. Compromise between 2 conflicting ideals. Open Source or Creative Commons is another approach.

Google making it harder to find digital goods is not going to change a dam thing. Google wasn't around when we were kids and piracy was rampant. Removing a search engine will only drive the process back underground when it peaked with The Pirate Bay in the mid 2000's.

Piracy has existed since the beginning of the network. Any technological means to try to remove it is like pissing in the ocean. Yeah good luck with that !

Re:Yeah, Good Luck with That (TM)

[UnknownSoldier]

Correct. The dirty secret of Copyright is that it was invented by --> Publishers <-- to maintain control by preventing other publishers from making a profit !!

I've posted about this in the past ...

"The history of copyright law starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books. The British Statute of Anne 1710, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned", was the first copyright statute. Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books."

and

"Pope Alexander VI issued a bull in 1501 against the unlicensed printing of books and in 1559 the Index Expurgatorius, or List of Prohibited Books, was issued for the first time."

and

"The first copyright privilege in England bears date 1518 and was issued to Richard Pynson, King's Printer, the successor to William Caxton. The privilege gives a monopoly for the term of two years. The date is 15 years later than that of the first privilege issued in France. Early copyright privileges were called "monopolies," ...

and

"In England the printers, known as stationers, formed a collective organization, known as the Stationers' Company. In the 16th century the Stationers' Company was given the power to require all lawfully printed books to be entered into its register. Only members of the Stationers' Company could enter books into the register. This meant that the Stationers' Company achieved a dominant position over publishing in 17th century England"

History of Copyright Law

Re:alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Bake a cake together
2. Go for a romantic walk
3. Have a pillow fight
4. Shag like animals

Re:Is Google Losing It?

[Njorthbiatr]

Google isn't modifying their search results.

They're adding advertisements for legitimate content at the top of searches and on the side... For a price.

It's brilliant. I love you Google.

wrong headline

[whyAreAllNicksTaken]

Google Monetizes 'To Fight Piracy' By Charging Legal Sites

Fixed that for you