
Google and Bing to deprecate piracy websites - atomwaffel
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/20/google-and-bing-to-demote-piracy-websites
======
Touche
Why are search engines getting involved in censorship? I understand that they
need to blank out certain sites as required by law, but omitting them entirely
is a bad move. When I perform a search I want it to search the web, not the
approved-web.

~~~
nerdponx
Because they're afraid of having iy forced down their throats. Pre-emptive
complicance with regulations that don't exist yet is a way for businesses to
maintain their autonomy in uncertain regulatory climates. Cf. antibiotic use
in animal factory farming.

~~~
x1798DE
This is pretty brutal, because in the end these "chilling effects" versions of
censorship can be much harsher than any actual government censorship (which
would be constrained by the First Amendment and judicially reviewable).

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unabst
Although, the elephant in the room is most piracy happens under their roof, at
least for music. I used to "steal" music on p2p. Now I just "watch" youtube.

[http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/05/what-music-
piracy...](http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/05/what-music-piracy-
really-looks-like/)

~~~
no_wizard
I would argue however that in some instances its a bit ambiguous if it is
'stealing' in that way with Youtube. While i think there are obvious examples
of this (user freemusc69 certainly is NOT the legitimate copyright holder or
the artist known as Kayne West, for instance), I do not believe official music
video uploads like those from Vevo to youtube on behalf the recording artist
or the record label are piracy in the same respect....or why would they even
bother?

I think the bigger problem the music industry has with youtube is semi-
legitimate: They used the non-official uploads as a leverage to get them to
sign en masse for Google Play Music / Youtube Music Key instead of doing the
proper thing and enforcing the DMCA take downs of the music at scale. They
could easily do most of this algorithmically by doing sample checks with
automated software and it would likely work most of the time (plus, they could
work with rights holders/publishers/record companies to maintain a 'white
list' of channels that wouldn't be scanned if they're uploaded by the channel
owner unless an actual DMCA complaint was filed against that channel and it
turned out to be legitimate).

Like most things, the real story is very complicated, and there isn't usually
a good vs bad side as the water is very murky in the details.

~~~
syrrim
I believe they do what you described, but it's not perfect. In order to do it,
they need to know what a song sounds like and who owns that sound. If the
owner hasn't uploaded it, then they can't take down copies. They also have the
problem that the copyright on a certain song might have expired, and therefore
one uploader can't claim copyright to every recording (but will try). Another
thing is that they will sometimes catch someone for just having a snippet of a
song in a video (fair use). The result is that they can't just take every
matching video down, they have to hold it in dispute, which means it will stay
up for a while.

~~~
no_wizard
I wouldn't expect it to be perfect i suppose. I didn't mean to imply that it
would be.

I would say having some experience with the actual business of distributing
music, that alot of distributors that are used to say, get your content on
iTunes and the like en masse, do have the capability of allowing a service to
'sample' a song and do a lot of pre-checks of verification in that way.

They could tap into that ecosystem for legitimacy. It certainly does get
harder beyond that though.

------
xg15
> _It means [search users] will more likely to be taken to bona fide providers
> rather than pirate sites, where a user’s security may be at risk._

I'm 100% certain that was the main motivation for the change. /s

~~~
Silhouette
It might not be the _main_ motivation, but it's certainly a legitimate
concern. Malware does get distributed via illegal content sharing sites. Those
sites do get used for phishing and card fraud.

While I can't say I'm full of sympathy for pirates who get hoist by their own
petard, plenty of innocent people also get hurt because they don't realise the
site they are visiting is not kosher. It was high up on their favourite search
engine, after all!

Sending their users to those dangerous sources is hardly in any search
engine's best interests, regardless of any other incentives that may be at
work here.

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no_wizard
I fail to see how this is censorship. They're not censoring content that you
are able to access legitimately nor are they stopping you from finding content
that you agree or disagree with. They aren't stopping facts from coming to
light. They aren't stifling news sites.

They're stifling an illegal act of procuring content that is within the
confines of the current law, agree with it or not, thats all these sites allow
you to do.

I don't think for instance, pirate bay has ever been known for its breaking
news on current events.

Edit: For what its worth, these are private companies after all. So
'censorship' in terms of a legal or constitutional definition under freedom of
speech, would not apply here anyway.

~~~
noja
> I fail to see how this is censorship... They're not censoring content that
> you are able to access legitimately

Legitimately doesn't come into it.

    
    
        censorship
        noun
        "the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that
        are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security."

~~~
overcast
So not censorship in this case. They are removing illegal software sites from
their company websites.

Side note, I'd like to hear the age of people who argue either side of this
topic.

~~~
vetinari
38, born in a communist country.

Yes, it is a censorship. It is manipulating the output in order to not provide
an information, that would be otherwise available, caused by interest of some
third party.

To expand on the topic:

1) it is not illegal to tell other people where to find bootleg software or
media,

2) in many countries it is legal to download such software or media (and they
pay for the privilege in the form of an extra fee on their blank media, memory
cards and hard drives, whether they do it or not)

3) what is illegal is to distribute software or media without the consent of
the rights owners.

Point 3) is an issue between those sites that do it and the rights owners,
nothing between the end users or search engines. Neither of them do 3)
themselves.

~~~
overcast
Are you OK then with Google removing sites that are spam, or sites that aren't
mobile friendly, or removing a site from the top 10 page one results? Are you
good with children being presented with porn/cigarette/alcohol/whatever
advertising/results? At what point does "censorship" fall off, and common
sense take over.

~~~
vetinari
Neither of those you named are Google problems.

Nobody of us might like spam, but there is obviously something that keeps
these in the business. What? Eradicate _that_ , remove their cash flow.

I might not like sites that aren't mobile friendly, but fortunately, when I'm
not in a mood so scroll around it, I can always close it. No need for Google
to step in.

I also do not like children being presented with
porn/cigarette/alcohol/whatever advertising/results. But - these result do not
come themselves, they are initiated, usually by those children. There is more
need for parenting, than for Google protection. If it really bothers you, most
routers allow for filtering the web, and some ISPs provide that as a service -
for those interested, as it should be.

The problem with common sense vs censorship is: where you draw the line?
That's the hard question, and easily abused one at that. Especially by
entities like Google, who are not a harmless protector of innocent or knight
in shiny armor. They are businesses, who have interest that may not align with
yours, especially in the long run.

~~~
no_wizard
Which is also why you're free to take your business elsewhere.

There are a myriad of search engines out there. They have competition.

I would say Google's right to do what google wants to do trumps any real
arguments against them doing this here. I doubt they'll have any notable
downtick in users.

Of course, you right to have an opinion on their practices is valid, i hope
its not coming across as if its not, i just wanted to focus on the realities
of the situation for the broader reading audience

------
croon
In another reality it's easier to offer services people want, made available
by technological developments, than spend billions of dollars in lobbying to
force people to use antiquated modes of purchase.

I've paid Steam and Spotify for 13 and 9 years respectively to not have to do
any work in getting games and music.

Now if only the movie (and to a lesser extent TV) industry caught on.

------
cr0sh
A couple of thoughts:

1) This could open up the market again for search engines (ie - "we don't
censor your search, so use us instead of the other guys".

2) How long until you try to search for "{name of research paper} pdf" and you
only get links back to the pay-for-access sites for research papers?

Personally I think this is BS, but I understand why they are doing it. It
won't stop piracy or other illegal crap - it will just move it elsewhere, like
it always has. If you want the stuff, you can find it. You always have, you
always will.

The second one, though, bothers me. All too often, I read an article about a
research paper I want to read, only to be paywalled by one of the big research
paper companies. But usually - if the paper is older than 6 months or so - I
can google for it, and find a copy (sometimes a draft). In many cases, it will
be off of one of the researcher's sites or blogs. Other times, it will be in
an FTP archive somewhere, or linked by someone else.

It really bothers me when for a research paper, I am asked to pay anywhere
from $25.00 USD or more for a PDF, as an interested individual or hobbyist.
Researchers are also expected to do the same, but are largely insulated from
it by their institutions, who shell out big $$$ for a subscription to the
services (so for the researcher, they don't see the cost - though most know
about it otherwise - plus they usually have to pay thru the nose themselves
just to get it on the path to publishing!).

I have found that sometimes - in certain cases - finding the author(s) of a
paper and emailing them asking for a copy (stating that I am a hobbyist
interested in their work) generally works well enough to get a copy sent to me
(and sometimes much more).

Ultimately - I wouldn't be surprised to see Google and Bing do this after a
few threats from the publishing companies...

------
tambourine_man
DuckDuckGo just got themselves a few percent more traffic

~~~
ddorian43
The use bing

~~~
Gaelan
And a few other sources, and do the final ranking themselves.

------
romanovcode
Yeah, someone should just create a search engine specifically for piracy
websites.

~~~
dandelion_lover
I guess [http://yacy.net](http://yacy.net) should work fine.

~~~
CommanderData
Until it is blocked by ISPs. In the UK ISPs have blocked access to most
torrent sites and other torrent related sites too.

It feels or seem the p2p era has seen its time at least for us in the UK,
because of censorship and legitimate alternatives.

The lobbyist have finally influenced far enough.

~~~
mixedCase
> Until it is blocked by ISPs

And promptly unblocked by using a different DNS server or a VPN, both things
no longer limited to the realm of the computer-savvy.

~~~
CommanderData
There's something quite telling of the need to resort to VPNs to access sites
that should be accessible. A VPN isn't really a solution to the wider problem
that is powerful piracy lobbyist.

I see this response all the time but fail to see how it addresses the real
problem.

~~~
mixedCase
> I see this response all the time but fail to see how it addresses the real
> problem.

It's being pragmatic rather than an idealist. Politics sucks, and nothing may
change even if you do the right thing or in this case, specially if you do the
right thing since your opponents don't give a shit about such concepts.

It's sad and it's dumb, but that's human nature.

------
cyborgx7
I'm actually kinda suprised this hasn't happened already. I wish one of those
distributed search engines was in a usable and useful state already. That
can't be an impossible problem to solve eventhough it does seem really
difficult.

------
edpichler
These corps are becoming too powerful.

------
kirykl
Automated Uber vehicles will eventually feature something similar - blackout
on driving to 'illegal' places

~~~
kefka
Or a free ride to a police station at no extra charge, for appropriate pat
down before going to high-crime location.

There's a short story im not able to find, that has this very idea as a plot.

------
didibus
Am I missing something here, because it doesn't sound like they are going to
censor the content, just score them lower.

Search will always be biased, it's inherent to the problem space. Word
appearance, cross linking, and every other metric used to sort and score
results are always going to optimize certain things over others.

So in this case it's a matter of ethics, and I find it hard for anyone to
morally suggest that illegal content should score higher and be considered
more relevant, unless you want to debate over the legality of it.

------
andybak
This could be positive for 'ethical' pirates. i.e. non-scam sites. Usually the
more dubious torrent sites or similar seem to rank quite highly. Reverting to
word of mouth could increase the likelihood of trustworthy sites maintaining
their prominence.

Everything above is written with the full knowledge that there is some irony
in talking about ethics and trustworthiness in relation to copyright
infringement. Nonetheless - I think the terms still carry some validity in
context.

------
Grue3
These are usually spread by word of mouth, rather than Googling. Of course,
Google and Microsoft own a browser and can block them client-side, but that
will only cause people to switch to alternative browsers. Finally, an OS-level
block or even hardware-level block could be attempted. I think we'll be
heading into that direction at some point.

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udev
I can see Google/Bing thinking that this kind of traffic does not generate
much income anyway, so might as well bow to the pressure and censor it.

I think they haven't fully factored in the longer term losses they might incur
when people might look for, find, and switch to an alternative good-enough
uncensored search engine, e.g. Yandex.

------
Taylor_OD
Does anyone actually find torrent sites by googleing (or binging) "torrent
website"?

~~~
overcast
That's how people find EVERYTHING. Which is why paying $10,000 for the dot com
version of your company doesn't mean much, when you can get the .whatever for
much less.

