The RIAA has given Google bad marks for its fight against piracy in 2011, according to this Ars Technica report. One year ago Google made several promises to combat piracy on various web sites and the RIAA's report card says that those promises have not been met with swift action or progress.
The RIAA says that Google's efforts to date have been "incomplete," pointing to four areas where it has failed: responding quickly to takedown requests, making it more difficult for websites that carry copyrighted material to participate in its AdSense program, removing piracy-related terms from autocomplete searches, and making legitimate content easier to find in search results.
The RIAA points out that search terms such as "lady gaga mp3 download" are still suggested by the autocomplete feature of Google search. This, they say, is because Google still refuses to prioritize legitimate content over other content such as those sites that traffic in illegitimate downloads. Of course the RIAA doesn't deserve a free ride either, nor does any other group or company in the name of fighting piracy. Getting prioritized requires someone to pay some ad money, after all.
But the RIAA's biggest complaint has to do with Google's promise to respond more quickly to takedown requests. Google has kept its promise to get faster takedowns on services it owns such as Blogger and search. While the RIAA admits that Google has kept its promise in those areas, it says that Google's management of the Android Marketplace lacks an adequate process for screening and it doesn't automatically blacklist illegitimate content from AdSense and Google Wallet. Finally, the RIAA complains that, "the [takedown] tools Google has built have limits on the number of submissions rights holders can submit each day and they do not scale to the scope of piracy online."
The RIAA ends its report by hoping that additional steps will be taken by Google to proactively block "pirate sites" from using its advertising networks, proactively screening Android apps for infringing content, and proactively list sites with authorized content ahead of infringing sites in search results.
Finally the RIAA takes a cheap shot at Google for opposing any legislation that would help combat online piracy. Of course Google would be more likely to support an act like OPEN, which is more even handed than Protect IP and SOPA. Maybe the RIAA should write better bills for the law makers they have co-opted.
Source: Ars Technica
Comments
Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
"Finally the RIAA takes a cheap shot at Google for opposing any legislation that would help combat online piracy. Of course Google would be more likely to support an act like OPEN, which is more even handed than Protect IP and SOPA. Maybe the RIAA should write better bills for the law makers they have co-opted."
NO! No no no no no. Don't EVER do the mistake of compromising on rights. The way that plenty of laws have passed is exactly like this. Try one that is FAR too heavy handed, on that everyone agrees. Then bring a new, lesser one. Everyone sees it as a compromise and as a lesser evil and goes for that one. OPEN is TERRIBLE. Please do not, even slightly, advocate it.
Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
agreed, there can be no compromise when personal freedoms are involved.
Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
This is kind of like when NIMF, Greenpeace, or especially PETA, release a report slamming some company. It just makes me respect that company even more than I did before. :D
Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
Unsurprisingly, the RIAA has received a failing grade on a report card from consumers, as they have failed to adapt to a changing business environment because it would infringe on their ability to get fat of the hardwork of artists and make it more challenging to senselessly sue people.
I found this telling:
The Autocomplete feature, being automatic, can't discriminate very easily between certain kinds of entries. Let's ignore for the moment that maybe someone is searching for places to purchase Lady Gaga music -- perhaps an iTunes alternative -- and just doesn't know how to search well; the three terms here 'Lady Gaga', 'MP3' and 'Download' are all relevant for basic, non-pirating searches. 'Lady Gaga download' might be looking for desktops, sound bites, or who knows what else. 'MP3 download' might be looking for independent music, or other kinds of audio -- the RIAA isn't the only organization that makes use of the file format. 'Lady Gaga MP3' could be looking for online shops, or available tracks. Ultimately, the search term in question is nebulous.
What the RIAA wants, clearly, is some sort of blacklist on terms. Censorship. And if the succeed with censoring the results offered by Autocomplete (which, by the nebulous results they object to, would likely obliterate it's usefulness for anything pop-culture, music, or download related), then they would begin to demand that the censorship be expanded to include search results as well.
Their motives are transparent, self serving, and shallow. The way the RIAA and MPAA have behaved in the broadband age, staunchly defending an outmoded business model and refusing to adapt to the changing circumstances of the information age, has exposed them as examples of the worst of what capitalism creates.
Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
Wait. So are you against Capitalism? Copyright Law is the real issue here - it protects works for far longer than it should. Shorter length copyright protections would force companies to continually innovate or die. Exactly how copyright is intended to work.
Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
Thing is.. this isn't even about capitalism or copyright.. it is about a powerful private industry trying to utilize the federal government to ensure it is the winner in a conflict of business interests, including giving that private interest broad powers that other trade groups do not have to protect themseves.
Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
Did I say I was against Capitalism? No. But this mindless pursuit of profits doesn't strike me as much different than the attitudes that, say, committed mass fraud over a series of years and kneecapped the American economy for personal gain, unrepentantly.
You can't divorce copyright law from capitalist intent in the west; in fact, very little law can be seen as separate from a capitalist philosophy, for good or bad. The reason why Copyright lasts so long is because companies which rely on intellectual property lobbied government for longer copyright periods and won, over and over again. It's actually something that is very well documented. And the more that technology has grown, making duplication easier and easier, the more that people have tried to challenge existing copyright. However, the companies that rely on IP are unwilling to change, and so they fight tooth and nail to keep it the way it is.
Don't kid yourself, the insane lawsuits against people who have illegally downloaded media frequently demand overcompensation values with no basis in reality. The RIAA and MPAA want people to think that downloading one song off the web is a LIFE RUINING mistake. It's a scare tactic. And since the MPAA and RIAA earn money from their IP, and there is no money to be made in reducing copyright, the battle is lopsided -- for entirely capitalist reasons.
Unfortunately, because of the way that the US handles their politics and laws, based on capitalist principals, their their (admittedly waning) influence on the rest of the West, many problems in Western culture can be traced back to the capitalist philosophy. Capitalism itself is not good or evil, but that doesn't mean it can't be abused.
Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
ironic, since their hand was caught in the piracy cookie jar as previously reported on this very site
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Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
Go Google ^_^
Re: RIAA Report Card Give Google a Failing Grade
Zero cioncidence that Google is against SOPA