The RIAA isn't buying Google's efforts to thwart piracy, pointing out flaws in its "Take-down" efforts.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has fired back at Google over its transparency report released last week, basically saying the search engine giant doesn't do enough to fight piracy despite its recent efforts. Google claimed that in just one month, it received almost 1.25 million take-down requests on behalf of 1,296 copyright owners.
Apparently that's just the tip of the piracy iceberg.
"Even more transparency is needed to fully understand the scope of the problem," said Brad Buckles, Executive Vice President, Anti-Piracy, RIAA. "Knowing the total number of links to infringing material available and the limitations Google imposes on rights owners to search for infringements reveals how meager the number of notices is relative to the vast amount of infringement."
Buckles points out that anyone can search for any major recording artist’s track and the term "mp3," and discover that most of the very first results offered by Google direct people to infringing material. Similar results are also seen when searching for any popular creative content followed by the words "free download."
"On the one hand, Google states that it processes an overwhelming number of notices," he said. "On the other hand, Google’s data misleads by calculating that the DMCA notice requests represent a tiny fraction of the pages on even the most recidivist sites."
Buckles goes on to point out five facts. First, Google places artificial limits on the number of queries that can be made by a copyright owner to identify infringements. The company even limits the number of links copyright owners can ask them to remove per day. Google has also placed constraints on the tools they promote to deter infringement to identify and notice infringements -- constraints that are well below what is necessary.
"One needs to consider these numbers and Google’s activities in context," he said. "Google says it received requests to remove 1.2 million links from 1000 copyright owners in one month. But consider that Google has identified nearly 5 million new links posted in just the last month in searches for free mp3 downloads of just the top 10 Billboard tracks."
In his fourth fact, Buckles points out that Google claims that the DMCA notices it has received for a site represent less than .1-percent of the links it had indexed for the domains at the top of its list. But this percentage is misleading given the constraints imposed by Google on a copyright owner’s ability to find infringements and send notices to Google.
Finally, if "take down" does not mean "keep down," then Google’s limitations "merely perpetuate the fraud wrought on copyright owners by those who game the system under the DMCA." Buckles offers up an example of this, saying that Google has blocked search results leading to linked pirated material on a specific site, but hasn't blocked the site itself. Thus, the RIAA keeps having to send requests each time the site throws up a new link to the content in question.
"In order to truly address this problem, Google needs to take its commitment to fight piracy more seriously by removing the limits on queries and take downs, by taking down multiple files of the same recording instead of just one when a 'representative sample' of infringing files is provided to them, and by establishing meaningful repeat infringer policies," he said.
"Clearly the current process is not working," he added. The full Google-bashing report can be read here.
Just for their efforts I hope more people pirate causing the RIAA, MPAA, and Record Labels to lose EVERYTHING they have.
If you want to help follow the steps below:
- Get a VPN
- Encrypt your HDD with TrueCrypt or BitLocker
- Use PeerBlock when downloading
- Use TorBrowser to surf pirate sites
- Use Eraser to permanently erase pirated files when your done with them
- Use magnet links for torrents and enable full stream encryption and random ports
- Use OpenDNS instead of your ISPs DNS
It's Not google's job!
The request that Google take down the whole site from its search results is also preposterous, this would eliminate the display of results for non-copyrighted material on that site along with copyrighted material. The site itself is partially liable for the material it hosts, but ultimately they too are only offering a service which can be taken advantage of, as in the librarian example.
I do not blame the RIAA for wanting to protect its copyrighted material, otherwise why have a copyright? However, I think the RIAA needs a scape-goat and Google (the most widely used search engine) is fulfilling that role at this point, with much resistance. The real culprit is the uploaders, but since anyone can legally buy the material then illegally upload it, there will always be someone uploading as long as there is somewhere to upload to. Uploading is not the problem however, there are countless legitimate uses for uploading material to the internet, as too for downloading.
Ultimately the only way to stop pirating would be to filter each upload on the internet and scan for copyrighted material. Problem is, there are innumerable uploads each month and copyrighted material may be in any number of file formats thus making the task of scanning for copyrighted material so daunting it could not be done within the budget of perceived loss of sales. I say perceived because the courts have already ruled that a download does not constitute a lost sale; there are plenty of things I wouldn't buy unless it were free (essentially everything intangible) and as a result I utilize alternate paths of consuming them such as internet radio, which is not free since I pay for internet access and "pay" for the internet radio by advertisements but it is legal.
Just my two cents, feel free to agree or disagree.
You hit the nail on the head; RIAA is not paying Google for the time and effort that all this involves, therefore Google is not on their payroll and not obligated in any way to comply with this BS. Furthermore, RIAA is not saying anything about other search engines, making one believe that they are going to try some legal action in the future against whoever has more money, i.e. Google.
RIAA and MPAA need to disappear.
Reminds me of childhood..."I'm telling, you owe me all the money in the world!"
It isn't Google's job to go about actively enforcing the *IAA's intellectual monopolies for them.
I like the RIAA like i like my potato's. I F'ING HATE POTATO'S.