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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.

42 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 PCM2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you don't know how it works, it's only because you haven't bothered to look it up.

      Not exactly. You only know how PageRank worked at the very beginning, when it was patented. That is far from "the" Google search algorithm these days. It remains one of the most important ones, and possibly one that's fundamental to how Google's whole search engine works, but they have many, many other algorithms that govern search results today. Most of these are not patented, mainly for the reasons mentioned earlier: If Google patented them, it would have to disclose how they work. Instead, they maintain them as trade secrets, like the formula for Coca-Cola.

      In Disney's case, I think it's not really interested in competing with Google. It would much rather Google, Bing, etc look at its patent, say "OK, I can do that if it will get Disney off my back" and implement the patent for little-to-no royalty fees.

      --
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    3. Re:Algorithms Can Be Patented by penguinoid · · Score: 5, Funny

      What I'd like to know is why Disney would create a search engine that won't find any of Disney's products, and instead take you to the original stories they stole from to make their animations?

      --
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    4. Re:Algorithms Can Be Patented by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

      Regardless of whether it's patentable... does anybody really need a search engine that only returns sites "certified" by Disney? Really?

      I trust Disney to certify sites about as much as I would trust government to do it. Which is to say: about zero.

    5. 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.

    6. Re:Algorithms Can Be Patented by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They are patenting it, not implementing it. This way no one else can implement it.

    7. Re:Algorithms Can Be Patented by StripedCow · · Score: 2

      They formulated the ranking of websites as an eigenvalue problem. Not sure how that would be patentable.
      http://www.math.cornell.edu/~m...

      --
      If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    8. Re:Algorithms Can Be Patented by tlhIngan · · Score: 3

      They are patenting it, not implementing it. This way no one else can implement it.

      This is Disney. They're going to get the law changed to FORCE everyone to implement it (and of course, pay them the requisite licensing fees).

      It's how Disney got Macrovision through back in the early days (it failed on early VCRs because their AGCs were slow, so by forcing lawmakers to have it implemented, everyone had to tighten things up).

      You know Disney's heading to the lawmakers shortly to get Google etc., to have it in.

  2. Actually no... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "...enable the filtering of undesirable search results" - Undesirable for whom?

    "...but what the typical user will want to see is a more authentic page" - That's an interesting assertion, but I don't think that's actually true.

    "...rely on a website's "popularity."" - Popular represents what people want, not these bogus 'authentic' (read 'expensive, DRM infested frustrations') metrics.

    This basically boils down to "unless we sell it there's no way to get it". An interesting idea, but fail.

    1. Re:Actually no... by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To be more precise, when people go searching for things, they want to make sure they're getting unbiased results.

      People don't care about "unbiased". They care about "useful". Getting results of all DRM movies would be very un-useful to some. The "pirated" copies work on phones, PCs, consoles, and just about everything. The DRM versions are more restricted. The utility of the result is more important than "bias".

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    2. Re:Actually no... by easyTree · · Score: 2

      Duh... MegaCorp is always right. Move along citizen.

      --
      Requiem for the American Dream
  3. Yeah baby! by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Funny

    It will be bigger than Bing! At last a search engine that can take on Google.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  4. 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.

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  5. So they patented this because....? by complete+loony · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... they *don't* want other search engines to use this?

    Or are they planning to somehow force search engines to license the process?

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    09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    1. Re:So they patented this because....? by NiteMair · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Probably the latter.

      I'm guessing the next step in their evil plan is to convince congress to pass some law making such mechanisms mandatory in the U.S. - at which point they will license the tech and profit.

      Face it, Disney loves to lobby congress, they have done so successfully for many decades.

    2. Re:So they patented this because....? by Calydor · · Score: 4, Funny

      That was my thought as well. This is the perfect excuse for Google to shrug and say, "Welp, we can't do that ourselves now and we don't want to pay the license. Sorry fellas, ThePirateBay hits the #1 spot for 'disney movie' searches."

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    3. Re:So they patented this because....? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I just love how bribery is called "lobbying" in the US.

    4. Re:So they patented this because....? by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      It isn't. Lobbying is talking. Bribing is paying or giving stuff. Lobbyists that are caught paying or giving stuff go to jail for... bribery. Which means the same thing here as other places.

    5. Re:So they patented this because....? by NotSanguine · · Score: 2

      It isn't. Lobbying is talking. Bribing is paying or giving stuff. Lobbyists that are caught paying or giving stuff go to jail for... bribery. Which means the same thing here as other places.

      That's just adorable! Do you believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy too?

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  6. But the important thing is.... by dohzer · · Score: 2

    The search engines people actually want to use will still be free, right?

  7. Authenticity? by Shillo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sure this "invention" will correctly attribute Snow White to Brothers Grimm and not Disney. Right?

    --
    I refuse to use .sig
  8. good by cjpa · · Score: 2

    Good thing they patented it. Now nobody else will try to implement it.

  9. How did they manage that? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Disney chose a non-piracy-themed 'authenticity' metric because they are Disney; but how did they manage to sneak any variation of "Yeah, a search engine; but weighted on Metric X, as well as popularity!" past the patent office?

    In the arms race between search engines and SEO abhumans, naive popularity became obsolete almost immediately, and made assorted additional weights, filters, and heuristics both necessary and obvious(at a general level, specific ones or specific implementations of one may well be nontrivial or even brilliant; but the fact that naive popularity is now the road to linkfarm hell is news to no one.)

    Weighting for copy-cop-correctness is somewhat novel, since the customer demand isn't obvious; but I'm still not seeing how you can scrape an entire patent out of that(especially when the guys in the Patent and Trademark office have probably heard of the "Let's have a big list of registered trademarks for the sake of authenticity in commerce" concept once or twice before...)

  10. Does it matter? by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

    Yahoo has a search engine, and so does Bing and some others.

    People use Google.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:Does it matter? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      People use Google.

      Some of us use DuckDuckGo.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  11. A product with no market by nikhilhs · · Score: 2

    Who cares about a search engine that no one will use? People won't use a search engine that doesn't return the results the people are searching for.

  12. Useful as a plugin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Use this as a plugin to a real search engine to identify and strip out the sites that they are promoting as "legit" :-)

  13. 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.

  14. Wow, that's funny! by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They design a search engine that implements their wet dream for them and then because they are what they are, they make sure nobody will use it by slapping a patent on it! They are their own worst enemy!

  15. Shooting themselves in the foot by JazzXP · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Doesn't this mean that search engines can freely show pirate content (including Disney content) for people to find now and not lose any safe harbour provisions? Otherwise they'd be infringing patents...

  16. 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
  17. Disney patents a customer free search engine. by EmperorOfCanada · · Score: 2

    Even if their search engine was slightly better than Google's it will go nowhere. But making it worse for many people isn't going to endear them to anyone. But most importantly they aren't going to endear themselves with the techno savvy crowd who would typically evangelize a new search engine. So my guess is that we will see a handful of Disney shows do horribly shoehorned in product placements for this turd and then it will be quietly shut down.

  18. Re:Thanks for reminding us in the last line... by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 2

    There's a reason Disney employees refer to it as 'Mouseschwitz'.

  19. This is great by frovingslosh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't want to question too much the validity of this patent. I'm just glad that a corrupt organization like Disney got the patent. That way other search engines will think twice and not risk implementing any sort of "authenticity" factors" in their searches. So Disney can go ahead and have searches that favor Disney in their own search engine, but will have to avoid doing that. Great move Disney. What other things that would have favored you are you going to patent so that others can't do?

    --
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  20. Standard technical measures by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Unless Disney manages to get a court to rule that a search engine forfeited its OCILLA safe harbor for not licensing this patent, claiming that the patented invention has become one of the "standard technical measures" as defined in 17 USC 512(i)(2).

    1. Re:Standard technical measures by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      Nah, all the major search engines would have to do is show a judge and/or jury just how bad of a failure go.com was, and therefore why Disney has no business either running a search engine or setting rules for one.

  21. Flood of immigrants by tepples · · Score: 2

    Ironically, this is an incredible boost for other nations which don't subscribe to such idiocy

    But how practical is it for affected U.S. citizens to obtain work visas in said other nations?

  22. Re:This is a patent, not a site. by The+Ickle+Jones · · Score: 2

    Since when do they care about the 1st amendment, or any part of the constitution?

  23. Tricky Problem by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2

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

    They got it working in the first 6 months. It took the remaining 3.5 years to figure out how to stop the sites for Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan, Treasure Island etc. getting banned by all the piracy filters.

  24. Could potentially be useful by 91degrees · · Score: 2

    A lot of the time I'm looking for reviews of a TV show and all I get is links to pirate versions. I already pirated it! I don't need them! Switching to an alternative.

    Sadly they're doing it wrong. I really don't want to find the official web page for the show. That contains no useful information. I want to know what people think.

  25. paywalls by StripedCow · · Score: 2

    So basically, it's a search engine for searching paywalls.

    This makes it easy to filter out paywalls from your search results.
    1. run search on google
    2. run search on disney
    3. subtract results from (1) by (2)
    4. profit

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.