Search Engines & Copyright Holders Ready Voluntary Anti-Piracy Code

[Zarathustra[H]]

Torrentfreak is reporting today that Google and other search engine providers are close to a voluntary agreement with rightsholders on how to best conceal search results pointing to pirated content. While Google has taken many steps to limit showing links to pirated content in the past, and reportedly received over a billion takedown requests last year alone, they are always accused of not doing enough. Maybe the rights holders are annoyed at those links at the bottom of the page that tell you exactly which links they are not showing you?

While this story is U.K. specific, there is no indication whether the agreement would have global implications, or if it would apply only for searches originating from the U.K.

Personally I don't buy holding indexing services like Google responsible for piracy. To me, it sounds a lot like holding the phone company responsible for for money laundering, because you can find a money-laundering front business in the yellow pages.

Due to the worldwide nature of the web, it will be extremely interesting to see how any UK-based agreement plays out overseas. It seems unlikely that Google will be able to implement strictly local measures without coming under pressure to follow suit in the United States, for example.If you can do it in the UK, you can do it everywhere, the company will be told.

 

[sadsteve]

It always seems to me that the 'rights' holders always want someone else to go through the pain of enforcing their 'rights'. If they want google to take the pirate links out of their search results, they should be paying for the effort.

 

[oROEchimaru]

I think google can do a good job at a high level blocking key sites... especially since if you block the legit popular ones then the fake malware ones emerge in search results... however i dont think they need to police the internet and every song, movie etc released. Just like google can help block known kiddy porn sites from the non-dark net but if some ahole posts a dpick on hardforums.com thinking it was his darknet site thats not google's fault

 

[Shotglass01]

They should stop blaming everyone but themselves for piracy already. The internet is here. Make a premium product for fair money and profit.

 

[B00nie]

It's extremely dangerous if anything is filtered automatically from the search results. It's censorship and limiting freedom of information.
Nothing stops government agencies 'slipping' filter keywords that conveniently suppress critic to the government and information about crimes committed by the powers that be.

 

[collegeboy69us]

Wasted effort -- truly.

If the product is good, available, and at a reasonable price I'm more than happy to pay for it. Amazon gets a good chunk of my money every year because of this simple fact same thing on Steam.

No amount of code/DRM/whatever is going to stop people.... if humans made it, humans can crack it. Just seems like wasted effort because the people that pirate it don't have any money anyways.

 

[zalazin]

waste of time just will tick off everyone

 

[deton8]

It's extremely dangerous if anything is filtered automatically from the search results. It's censorship and limiting freedom of information.
Nothing stops government agencies 'slipping' filter keywords that conveniently suppress critic to the government and information about crimes committed by the powers that be.

I don't even think you have to go as far as government. I am not so hot on the idea of corporations policing what I am and am not allowed to see on a free and open internet.

 

[cyberguyz]

How many folks actually use google to search for torrents? I don't because most of the links you end up with are to "pay me" sites that want you to register (and pay!) to get at torrents.

There are great searching functions already built right into the better bt clients.

 

[sir-gold]

To me, it sounds a lot like holding the phone company responsible for for money laundering, because you can find a money-laundering front business in the yellow pages.

Or holding a classified-ads company (Craigslist and Backpage) responsible for prostitution, because you can find prostitutes in the personals section....

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

How many folks actually use google to search for torrents? I don't because most of the links you end up with are to "pay me" sites that want you to register (and pay!) to get at torrents.

There are great searching functions already built right into the better bt clients.

I did just for this news post, because I wanted to remind myself what the DCMA statement at the bottom of the page looked like.

Hope I'm not on a list now

 

[oROEchimaru]

It would be nice if google let you report malware/scams through their site at least for legit reviewing or even their own ads (which have gotten better)... for a while in 2015 it was a joke how many ads led to malware and scams.