Google UK Vs. The Pirate Bay

March 8, 2013 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry 

Google UK Vs. The Pirate BayBad things never come alone. After being forced to stop its connections with both the Swedish and the Norwegian Pirate Parties, The Pirate Bay is now facing another problem – Google UK has decided to down-rank the website.

After being blocked by UK’s major internet providers, TPB is now receiving another hit, this time from Google. The search giant had finally responded to the many requests from the BPI to take action against the pirate ship; to the industry’s delight, Google is not showing (anymore) relevant results when someones types in (the) pirate bay, but instead proxy websites and Wikipedia’s entry are shown on the search engine’s first page.

Despite this move, it’s not likely for TPB to lose traffic; first of all, the name of the website is fairly easy to remember, and second, Google’s results point to a lot of alternatives (read proxy websites).

The move comes after UK’s BPI continuously asked Google to take measures against The Pirate Bay, and this seemed like a quick solution to calm the spirits down. Moreover, it’s rumored that the search engine is testing its down-ranking technology for TPB.

We’re not sure whether the bay’s team is happy with all this attention or not, but it feels like this situation could easily get out of hand, especially if Google decides to apply the same strategy in the US.

Tags: , , ,

Once Again, Google Failed To Efficiently Remove Pirate Sites From Its Search Results, RIAA Said

February 23, 2013 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games 

Once Again, Google Failed To Efficiently Remove Pirate Sites From Its Search Results, RIAA Said2012: Google releases a “Transparency Report”, pointing to takedown requests and the removal of infringing links. One year later, the Recording Industry Association of America is not happy with the search giant, blaming it for doing a really bad job.

“We recognize and appreciate that Google has undertaken some positive steps to address links to illegal music on its network,” Steven Marks, general counsel for the RIAA, said.

“Unfortunately, our initial analysis concludes that so far Google’s pledge six months ago to demote pirate sites remains unfulfilled. Searches for popular music continue to yield results that emphasize illegal sites at the expense of legitimate services, which are often relegated to later pages. And Google’s auto-complete function continues to lead users to many of those same illicit sites,” he continued.

RIAA’s study had apparently put to good use Google’s Transparency Report, highlighting pirate sites that still manage to show on Google’s first page. What the industry did was to pin-point the sites that were marked as “serial infringers per Google’s Transparency Report” and highlight the fact that they (the sites) still manage to be on Google’s first page of results nearly 98% of the time.

Moreover, Google’s “auto-complete” feature is continuing to suggest results that are directing people to infringing content.

“Well-known, authorized download sites, such as iTunes, Amazon and eMusic, only appeared in the top 10 results for a little more than half of the searches,” says RIAA’s report card.

In response, a Google spokesperson said:

“We have invested heavily in copyright tools for content owners and process takedown notices faster than ever. In the last month we received more than 14 million copyright removal requests for Google Search, quickly removing more than 97% from search results. In addition, Google’s growing partnerships and distribution deals with the content industry benefit both creators and users, and generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the industry each year.”

It’s quite obvious that this game of cat catching mouse is not going to be over soon, but maybe the RIAA should come up with new methods of blocking rogue websites from Google’s search results or stop doing it at all.

Tags: , , , ,

The EU Continues To Examine Google’s Alleged Antitrust Techniques

January 8, 2013 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events 

google-monopolyFor two years now the European Commission examines complaints against Google, claiming that the search engine tempers with its search results in order to favour Google-owned services.

Several internet companies, including Microsoft Corp., had filed complaints against Google, accusing the service of antitrust techniques. As such, the U.S. regulators decided to open an investigation of their own. Their decision came on Thursday the 3rd, 2012, and favored the search giant by stating there is not enough evidence to support such a case.

However, the regulators’ decision is not enough for the European Commission, who said, through Michael Jennings, that:

“We have taken note of the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) decision, but we don’t see that it has any direct implications for our investigation, for our discussions with Google, which are ongoing.”

To counter these allegations, Google came with informal settlement proposals to the European Commission back in July 2012.

Five months later, more specifically on December the 18th, the commission gave the internet company a month to gather and forward detailed proposals so that the investigation is concluded.

If found guilty or if the search engine fails to deliver, the company risks paying a fine equal to 10% of their revenues.

Tags: , , ,

France’s Supreme Court May Force Google To Censor Search Results

July 19, 2012 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues 

SNEP – which represents French music royalties – has been trying for years to make Google apply stronger anti-piracy policies when it comes to their autocomplete feature and the association of musical terms with keywords such as torrent, Rapidshare or Megaupload. Now it may succeed.

While the autocomplete feature is designed to make searching more efficient, France’s music royalty group SNEP concentrated all their efforts to make Google apply changes to the feature’s core code in order to discourage piracy.

In SNEP’s view, Google is doing the opposite, in the sense that it associates the two variables – music terms and piracy terms -, thus making it easier for the average online users to find and download copyrighted materials.

However, the French court did not agreed with SNEP and in 2010 it rejected the request, ruling that the terms’ transparency does not encourage illegal downloading of copyrighted materials. SNEP appealed the decision a year later but without luck.

Although the fight looked to be over, it seems like the Court de Cassation (Court of Cassation) decided on Thursday that the Court of Appeal violated a key clause of France’s laws on intellectual property. It agreed that SNEP has all the rights to demand that the court take “all measures to prevent or stop such an attack on a copyright or related rights.”

Now the case will be taken by the Court of Appeal in Versailles for another round of debates.

“Casse et Annule, dans toutes ses dispositions, l’arrêt rendu le 3 mai 2011, entre les parties, par la cour d’appel de Paris ; remet, en conséquence, la cause et les parties dans l’état où elles se trouvaient avant ledit arrêt et, pour être fait droit, les renvoie devant la cour d’appel de Versailles.”

Regarding this decision, SNEP’s CEO David El Sayegh said:

“This decision showing that search engines should be responsible for regulating the internet is a first in France”.

Google France reminded that while the company “takes very seriously” online infringement, autosuggest is merely an automatic response system to the users’ search terms. An interesting fact is that even though SNEP initially failed to force Google change their autocomplete, the search engine did start to filter some phrases.

“The company said in December that it would play nice with the big name record labels, TV networks, and movie studios, by providing better protection against piracy on the interwebs.

Accordingly, various search terms and file-sharing websites have now been erased from Google’s not-altogether spotless mind,” reads a The Register report.

Tags: , , , , ,

Google Warns To Sue Website that Enables Conversion of YouTube Videos

June 21, 2012 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues 

As many may know by now, there are many websites which convert YouTube links to mp3s, and one prominent service is YouTube-mp3.org, which now risks being sued by Google.

According to Google’s statistics the website providing with the extraction of mp3s from YouTube videos has 1.3 million visitors each day.

Being the largest source of free videos, YouTube is now concerned with the implications of these numbers.

To better understand how YouTube works, one should know that a video can be watched on their website, embedded in any page by using a unique code, or accessed through YouTube’s API (Application Programming Interface).

The API is not without rules, and these rules are set by YouTube’s Terms of Service. One service to take advantage on the API is youtube-mp3.org – a portal which allows its users to use basically any YouTube URL and transform it into an mp3 file within minutes.

Harris Cohen – Associate Product Counsel for YouTube – had sent a letter on June the 8th to “Philip” – the owner of the conversion service. In the letter he cites YouTube’s Terms of Service which clearly state that downloading YouTube content is strictly prohibited.

In addition, he highlights that to “separate, isolate, or modify the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API” is also forbidden.

If the website continues to offer its service, it may risk facing “legal consequences” as Cohen warned. The site was given seven days to comply.

TorrentFreak was contacted by Philip who confirmed that Cohen also received a letter in which he was explained that tens of millions of users are using his website and that negotiations should be carried out.

But Google is not so eager to talk Philip and – to make its statement crystal clear – has blocked all of YouTube-mp3’s servers from getting access to YouTube.

Philip said on his main website:

“We would estimate that there are roughly 200 million people across the world that make use of services like ours and Google doesn’t just ignore all those people, they are about to criminalize them. With the way they are interpreting and creating their ToS every one of those 200 million users is threatened to be sued by Google.”

Under the pressure of major record labels, YouTube is trying to stay as far as possible from copyright infringement by complying with the DMCA. It’s most likely that YouTube’s stance on this matter is going to be supported by the studios, and probably will add a plus on their effort to combat piracy.

Recommended alternatives: YouTube Downloader Plus

Tags: , , , ,

Next Page »