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Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites In Search Results (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Torrent Freak: In a comment to Australian media, Google states that it has demoted 65,000 [pirate] sites in search results, a list that's still growing every week. In total, the company received DMCA takedown requests for over 1.8 million domain names, so a little under 4% of these are downranked. The result of the measures is that people are less likely to see a pirate site when they type "watch movie X" or "download song Y." This means that these sites see a drop in visitors from Google and a quite significant one too. "Demotion results in sites losing around 90 percent of their visitors from Google Search," a Google spokesperson told The Age.

47 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Offer an alternative to piracy already by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Good on you, Google! I am sure that you will at the same time promote the sites where I can legally purchase movies that are download-to-own, and can be format shifted so they play on all my devices, right? Oh wait...

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    1. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by Calydor · · Score: 1

      They already do that. They go at the very top of the list, and are then followed by sites that let you pay through the nose to watch the movie once.

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      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    2. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Good on you, Google! I am sure that you will at the same time promote the sites where I can legally purchase movies that are download-to-own, and can be format shifted so they play on all my devices, right? Oh wait...

      They already do that. They go at the very top of the list, and are then followed by sites that let you pay through the nose to watch the movie once.

      No, no they do not. In the USA, none of the download-to-own movies can be legally format shifted so they play on all devices, because they all include some kind of copyright protection and bypassing that is a violation of the DMCA. The last video format we are allowed to format shift is VHS, because of a ruling against Macrovision. (In the same vein, the last audio format we are allowed to format shift is CDDA, because they only have a copy protection bit and it is standard practice to ignore it.)

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      Then name some. And be sure to include a couple that won’t display those all important words: “We’re sorry, but that item is not available in your country”, even though they are willing to ship me a physical DVD (region locked and DRMed)

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    4. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by Calydor · · Score: 1

      WHOOSH.

      The joke was that the top of the list had zero entries, and then came the rest.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    5. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by Calydor · · Score: 5, Informative

      Courtesy of The Oatmeal, a good list of what to do for legal TV shows:

      http://theoatmeal.com/comics/g...

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    6. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by Epsillon · · Score: 1

      Bugger it. I never have mod points when I need to up-vote so badly it hurts.

      --
      Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
    7. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      It's not just new stuff. For example, try to find someplace where you can buy the complete Sun Ra discography...

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    8. Re: Offer an alternative to piracy already by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      Actually, for most of our history, such content actually was everyone's for the taking. Copyright was invented not for the benefit of creators but for the benefit of the public. Creators are granted a temporary monopoly on their work so they can sell it and derive an income from it, but that is the means rather than the goal. The goal was to encourage creators to create and publish so we can all enjoy their stuff. The goal was abundance, not artificial scarcity.

      If creators or rights holders choose to not publish their works under "reasonable" terms, they violate their end of the deal. Funny you should mention New Zealand, there's a country used to afraid to be stuck in the arse end of DVD region coding where lots of stuff would never be published, and that fear was not unfounded. Here in the Netherlands, the government's position - before they caved in to publishers' lobbyists - was that if content wasn't available legally under "reasonable" terms, they wouldn't prosecute someone who availed himself of the material illegally. In other words, they sent a message to the rights holders: "Sort out your damn licenses and sales channels, or be content with your stuff being pirated". And that was a good law; it is high time the public claws back some of the rights we have lost over the years.

      Sure, you can argue about what those "reasonable terms" should be, and over here that meaning changed over time. You can't expect to get a movie on Netflix 1 week after it hits the cinemas. But where before it took DVDs 6 months to a year to hit the shelves, nowadays we expect that to be sooner. In the old days bundling songs on an album was the norm, nowadays people expect to be able to buy individual songs. And at last the EU is gearing up to enforce licenses for all of the region, so no more content that is available in one country but not the other. Buying DVDs used to be the norm, nowadays people expect downloads or streaming options. And at least the music industry has followed up on this: there are tons of legal ways to get music, and there's no reason to pirate it at all. But if you won't sell me that e-book even though you're happy to send me a hardcopy, just because of the country I am in and whatever screwed up licensing deal you made, then screw you; the Pirate Bay has what I need. I am more than happy to pay you for your work, but if you won't sell it to me, then I have zero moral remorse over getting it by other means.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    9. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Good on you, Google! I am sure that you will at the same time promote the sites where I can legally purchase movies that are download-to-own, and can be format shifted so they play on all my devices, right? Oh wait...

      Yep, all of those options already come up at the very top of the search results. The fact you don't see them just means...

    10. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by Computershack · · Score: 1

      Good on you, Google! I am sure that you will at the same time promote the sites where I can legally purchase movies that are download-to-own, and can be format shifted so they play on all my devices, right? Oh wait...

      Yes they do. Google Play Store, Itunes, Amazon Video and many other places allow you to legally purchase and download to own in formats that'll play on anything, many titles being released the same day they are in the cinemas so stop trying to use that well out of date bullshit excuse as a reason for your thievery.

      --
      I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
    11. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by Computershack · · Score: 1

      In the USA, none of the download-to-own movies can be legally format shifted so they play on all devices

      What devices don't support the formats widely used on pay sites? I've not had to format shift anything for quite some time.

      --
      I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
    12. Re:Offer an alternative to piracy already by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      You're an idiot.

      In the US, consumers who buy something can format-shift it however they like.

      Presumably you were credulous of warnings and statements otherwise made by the company that produced the content. But did you know that even the "FBI Warning" at the start of movies isn't from the FBI? It is just a thing from the movie company, telling you the name of the national law enforcement agency in the United States.

      The Macrovision ruling was about what companies can sell, not about what consumers can do. Also, it was settled without appeals, so there was no precedent uncovered.

      You're not a lawyer, and you also didn't understand the legal stuff.

  2. Who the fuck cares by Tsolias · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Duckduckgo has been serving me and a lot of people that I conversate with as a the main torrent search engine at least since 2014.( I have no idea if conversate is grammatically correct, but I heard a lot of americans using it)
    "what if DDG gets forced to do such result modifcations?" people may ask.
    There will always be an alternative.

    also here's a not so popular opinion:
    Google, Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the "normie" websites are exposing the clueless users to great dangers.
    What will happen if you eliminate all the legitimate trackers from the results?
    All the phishing websites will pop up in the first places and the clueless user will most certainly download his malware, run it and ruin its computer.
    with such practices they are not protecting their users, they are protecting their advertised customers.

    1. Re:Who the fuck cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The word you are looking for is "converse". Eg. It was my misfortune to converse with an American who incorrectly believed English was his first language.

    2. Re:Who the fuck cares by freeze128 · · Score: 1

      There seems to be a trend in America where people start mashing words together. It seemed to start with the Presidency of George W. Bush. Sure, I can understand what they are saying, but it drives my inner grammar nazi crazy!

    3. Re:Who the fuck cares by psnyder · · Score: 4, Funny

      Sometimes conversating gets more complexicated irregardless of localation.

    4. Re:Who the fuck cares by Spamalope · · Score: 1

      Mashing words together is a trend that started with the beginning of language. English likes to bash with foreign words, 'tele' for distance being a favorite - thus vision/scope/graph/phone. Why do you think English doesn't follow its own grammar and spelling rules?

    5. Re: Who the fuck cares by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      It is much older than that
      The hospital of the sisters of of St. Mary's of Bethlahem" became Bedlam

    6. Re:Who the fuck cares by Wraithlyn · · Score: 1

      I would argue the modern trend of "language mashing" actually started with Joss Whedon's style of writing dialog, starting with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

      https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pm...

      https://blog.oxforddictionarie...

      Nobody heard Bush talk and thought "I want to sound like that guy". But "Whedonesque" dialog was quirky and cool.

      --
      "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
    7. Re:Who the fuck cares by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      I've heard it lots of times.

      One of the nice things about the English language is that you can add any relevant prefix or suffix to any root word, and you can stack them up. And it usually is clear what these new words mean. And they're officially real words, because they have known roots.

      If you don't believe me ask your ESL teacher! ;)

    8. Re:Who the fuck cares by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Conversations easily get complexicated because so many factions are busy creating echo chambers.

      Oh, wait, you didn't understand that you really can add suffixes to create new words, so you didn't comprehend what the word you used would mean if constructed that way? I'm not surprised.

    9. Re:Who the fuck cares by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      If you learned that English is an open language, and that the things your teacher taught you as rules were just a "style guide" from some school, and that there are competing style guides that disagree, and that all the people who wrote the style guides actually agree they're not rules... would your inner "grammar nazi" execute itself?

      The thing about "grammar nazis" is that in English, if enough people do it so that you can know about it and list it as something you're opposed to, that already guarantees that it is a known construction, and is therefore correct. All errors are either internal inconsistencies, or one-off literal mistakes.

  3. Scam sites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Now if only they downranked all the scam sites, include youtube links, that only pretend to point to pirated content but actually either link to malware, ad link chains, or pushes to sign up for paid stuff. Then it'd be legit sites, news/journalism sites, pirate sites, and then scam sites instead of scam sites, legit sites, pirate sites, news/journalism sites.

  4. Google downranks it's value by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google downranks it's value as a search resource by involving itself in arfificial de-ranking.

    1. Re:Google downranks it's value by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      This.

      Google, Google, Google, why is it always Google? Momma always did like Google best.

      Sure, the people who live in urban areas have choices like Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, dogpike and stuff, but those who live in rural areas only have access to Google.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    2. Re:Google downranks it's value by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

      Their search accuracy is getting worse every day. They regularly ignore keywords in my searches so I then have to put quotes around them and even then a lot of times they still get ignored. For example last night I'm looking over beers at the store and decide to see what the IBU rating was for one brand. I type in the name of the beer followed by IBU. Google totally ignores IBU and strikes it out every time for all 10 results. Put quotes around IBU and hey what do you know it takes me right to the brewery's website where the information is listed.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    3. Re: Google downranks it's value by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      I've noticed this too. Google is not as good at searching the internet as it used to be. Instead of showing me what I searched for, it shows me what the "intelligent" algorithm thinks I ought to see.

      It's okay though - Big Brother Google knows best. Us po', ign'rant crackers should bow before the superior wisdom of the all-seeing GOOG.

  5. Some alternatives by Maelwryth · · Score: 4, Informative

    Duck Duck Go and its lite version.
    Findx.
    Quant
    I would include Startpage but they get results off Google. Qwant and DDG get results off Bing so they should probably be placed in the same boat. Findx actually has its own crawlers I think but their results are still iffy. However you can help them by adding your ranking to the results.

    --
    I reserve the write to mangle english.
    1. Re:Some alternatives by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Thanks for Findx. Good to support brands that are searching the web.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re:Some alternatives by mohsel · · Score: 1

      I was hoping someone would post some alternatives. thanks for doing so.
      I'll try using exclusively Findx for as long as i can, and i'd deactivate my ad blocker if their ads don't try to track me and are only selected according to my query.

  6. Time for a new search engine by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    Not an ad company that hides results.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  7. Re:Here maps by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

    The Americanizationism of the indigeneousley concatenated form of the corrupted "F**'em is (localizationizing a locality-based colloquallismatctation) is "Fuck 'em."

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  8. Does that mean key word Pirate now will work ? by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    So if the reason they are downranked is because they belong to some class, can I improve my search for these sites by putting the name of that class in the key word search.

    If so then downranking should also result in concentration making an appropriately worded search actually produce better results.

    Perhaps they could even make it an exclusive category

    Pirate: Game of Thrones

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Does that mean key word Pirate now will work ? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      The reason Google is waffling shite about the down ranking is they are the quislings of the corrupt. See, they are proudly proclaiming, we are attacking the choices of the people and fully 100% behind the corrupt establishment. This is actually a good thing, a solid indication that sites like https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duck... are really starting to hurt. Hence the desire to appeal to the corrupt, to attack those that threaten Google's dominance. See google is the good little corrupt authoritarian tool, who will ruthlessly attack and silence any actual real democracy, protect it from it's good guy 'er' evil competitors, they promise to protect the pigopolists in return, the corrupt establishment, those who abhor actual real democracy. Google, evil is as evil does and google certainly does a huge amount of it.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  9. Google provides greatest platform for pirates ever by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    There is tons of pirated material on youtube. Then there are the google books.

    I guess wants to eliminate competition.

  10. 100% accurate? by fuzzyf · · Score: 1

    No errors?
    All sites validated to be serving torrents of copyrighted material?
    Not one mistake?

    So we can conclude that everyone issuing DMCA is perfectly honest and no sites with critical viewpoints of countries, companies or people are on that list? Right?

  11. Nice site you have there by Epsillon · · Score: 2

    This sounds, to me, like a protection racket in the making. "Give us money and show our ads or we'll mark you down as a pirate."

    As much as censorship is distasteful, this is infinitely worse. The power it gives Google boggles the mind.

    --
    Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
    1. Re:Nice site you have there by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      I'll bet most of the pirate sites would really love it if google would accept them to show their advertising, they'd make more money.

  12. Learn a foreign language by iTrawl · · Score: 1

    Learn a foreign language to the level required to say "watch $EnglishMovieTitle online".

    Example, in Romanian: "vezi $EnglishMovieTitle online". Sometimes you could get better results by adding the word "gratis" to your query.

    The websites you find might be unintelligible, but the thing you're looking for might be intuitive enough for you to use even though you don't speak Klingon. Yeah, send a DMCA notice to Google Translate, because soon enough people will be searching for "online schauen", "Ver en linea", "Vaata internetis", and so on.

    Regardless of language, have your ad blockers and antivirus installed and up to date, as these sites are usually hostile regardless of language. At least "update to Flash HD" might be less tempting now.

    --
    "Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
    1. Re:Learn a foreign language by iTrawl · · Score: 1

      Hmm... you also need to find an English-friendly country which uses subtitles rather than dubbing, so that petty much leaves you with Romanian. I've tried Spanish and Russian and they're dubbing their copies. Had zero luck with Hungarian (come on guys, contribute to Google Translate).

      Guess you're stuck with Romanian sites then :)

      --
      "Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
  13. Can we have a list of these sites? by mapkinase · · Score: 1

    For science.

    --
    I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
  14. In other news... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

    65,000,000 pirates downrank Google in search preference.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  15. How does discrimination "promote the Progress"? by tepples · · Score: 1

    It is not yours! If they want to say only left hand red heads native born to West New Zealand born between 1970 and 1973 can have their content then that is their choice. Not yours!

    How does it "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" to allow a owner of a U.S. copyright to discriminate like that, particularly in the context of "equal protection of the laws" later in the same Constitution?

  16. Re:Wow by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

    Probably most of them are just carrying old stuff these days. The point is to find the good ones.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  17. Re:Google provides greatest platform for pirates e by malditaenvidia · · Score: 1

    There's also adding good ole "intitle:index of" to your queries, to find unprotected website listings full of goodies to plunder.

  18. Re:Wow by toddestan · · Score: 1

    Chances are the vast majority of those sites are just scams and don't actually have any of the content they claim they have.