Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Disney Patents a Piracy Free Search Engine

Posted by timothy on from the that-cuts-out-a-bunch-of-disney-movies dept.

wabrandsma writes with this excerpt from Torrentfreak: Disney has just obtained a patent for a search engine that ranks sites based on various "authenticity" factors. One of the goals of the technology is to filter pirated material from search results while boosting the profile of copyright and trademark holders' websites. A new patent awarded to Disney Enterprises this week describes a search engine through which pirated content is hard to find. Titled "Online content ranking system based on authenticity metric values for web elements," one of the patent's main goals is to prevent pirated movies and other illicit content from ranking well in the search results. According to Disney their patent makes it possible to "enable the filtering of undesirable search results, such as results referencing piracy websites." Disney believes that current search engines are using the wrong approach as they rely on a website's "popularity." This allows site owners to game the system in order to rank higher. "For example, a manipulated page for unauthorized sales of drugs, movies, etc. might be able to obtain a high popularity rating, but what the typical user will want to see is a more authentic page," they explain. Probably not a good place to look for a grey-market copy of Song of the South.

7 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Algorithms Can Be Patented by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Isn't a search engine just applying a ranking algorithm to content? Didn't think algorithms could be patented.

    1. Re:Algorithms Can Be Patented by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Then how come I don't know how it works?

      Google doesn't patent it - they keep it secret.

      Google PageRank is patented. http://www.google.com/patents/..., by Stanford where Page developed it, and which licensed the patent to Google for shares worth $336 million. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

    2. Re: Algorithms Can Be Patented by Garridan · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm a grad student with a patent. It's a pretty sweet deal for all involved parties. I can't afford to get a patent. The university can, though. They file for a patent in my name, and I keep a large percentage of the proceeds, should it ever get licensed. It's potential revenue for them, with nonzero costs -- did you know, you have to pay for patent renewal year to year? On the rare occasion that a google happens, the university wins big... but obviously Page isn't dead broke in a gutter somewhere. They helped him get off his feet in a number of ways; he'd have lost a much larger slice if he'd gotten private help starting his business.

  2. Why is this a patent ? Also : useless. by aepervius · · Score: 3, Informative

    1) Why a sort of software filtering of search results depending on some criteria are a patent in any way shape or form ? Probably only valid in the US anyway.

    2) how do they suppose this should work if other search engine do not use that filtering.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  3. shot in own foot by belmolis · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think that Disney may have shot themselves in the foot. A patent must by definition describe the method in sufficient detail that a person of ordinary expertise in the field can figure out how to implement it by reading the patent. Since the patent merel describes a ranking algorithm, it can be trivially inverted to select sites likely to contain pirated material.

  4. They Filed on Sep 9 2010 by ameline · · Score: 4, Informative

    They filed over 4 years ago. If they haven't got a working search engine by now based on this, they never will. 4 years is forever in internet time.

    Never mind that any search engine using this is very unlikely to make a dent in google.

    I think their strategy is to "shame" google et al into doing more -- "look, see we got a patent on a means of eliminating piracy, proving that it *IS* possible, therefore you have to do more to prevent piracy."
    Ignoring the fact that the existence of a patent proves nothing about whether the invention actually *works*. (I say this as someone who holds a number of patents -- all of mine work -- I filed them after I had them coded and working. But it would have been just as easy to make all of it up and code nothing.)

    --
    Ian Ameline
  5. Re:Thanks for reminding us in the last line... by pete6677 · · Score: 1, Informative

    I am now dumber for having read that comment. Please get help.