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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.

6 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.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    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?

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  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.

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

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