by Ellen Seidler | Ad Sponsored Piracy, Copyright, Google, Law, Politics, Tech
So-called “public-interest” groups really just “Google-interest” groups
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood’s efforts to hold Google accountable for its suspect business practices has come under fire recently by so-called web “watchdog” groups who’ve come to the defense of the internet behemoth. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy & Technology and Public Knowledge and others filed an amicus brief in support of Google’s efforts to ignore a subpoena from Hood requesting information related to its operations linked to illegal drugs, pornography and online piracy. Hood claims the company is in violation of the state’s consumer laws.
EFF, Center for Democracy & Technology and Public Knowledge fail to mention they receive money from Google
The pro-Google brief begins by providing summaries of its various signatories. It’s no surprise that each and every description fails to mention organizational ties to Google. Leading off the parade of disingenuous descriptors is the EFF:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) is a non
-profit, member-supported civil liberties organization that works to protect free speech, innovation, and privacy in the online world.
Funny that on its own website the EFF describes itself as a
“”a donor-funded US 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.” For the purposes of the brief, of course, characterizing itself as simply
“member-supported” provides a more innocent, public-interest veneer. In either case, if one attempts to discover exactly where the EFF gets its money, by reviewing the organization’s latest–though somewhat outdated–
financial data (from 2012-2013) it seems the
actual identities of donors are (conveniently) obscured.
via: https://www.eff.org/about/annual-reports-and-financials
In a 2012
article for Fortune Magazine, Matt Vella noted that money from Google (and other tech firms) does flow directly into EFF’s coffers.
If the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the nation’s preeminent digital rights nonprofit, had disclosed last year that it received a cool $1 million gift from Google — about 17% of its total revenue — some eyebrows might have been raised. The group typically describes itself as “member-supported” and, like most nonprofits, it treasures its above-the-commercial-fray, public-interest-group aura and reputation for independence.
Vella also pointed out, “The EFF, CDT, and Stanford’s CIS all reliably line up on the tech sector side in scrimmages with copyright holders.” Why bite the hand that feeds you?
Google actually makes no bones about the support it provides for both the EFF and
The Center for Democracy and Technology in a listing on its own
website:Our U.S. Public Policy and Government Affairs team provides support to a number of independent third-party organizations whose work intersects in some way with technology and Internet policy.
There’s also a little footnote in the amicus brief worth noting:
No one, except for undersigned counsel, has authored this brief in whole or in part or contributed money toward the preparation of this brief.
Yeah, right….One has to appreciate the legal jiu jitsu employed in this misleading caveat. Perhaps Google didn’t directly underwrite the brief, but it’s clear who pays (some of) the bills. As such, it’s no surprise that legal arguments cited in the brief include the well-worn don’t blame Google for the behavior of others gambit:
Simply put,requiring online service providers [like Google] either to respond to subpoenas directed primarily at third-party conduct—or to engage in protracted and expensive litigation to challenge their propriety—could result in extraordinary costs for those providers.
Last time I checked, it was Google that admitted culpability when it coughed up $500 million to pay a fine for knowingly earning profits from advertising for illegal drugs online.
The federal investigation,
which was first revealed in May, found that Google was aware that some Canadian pharmacies that advertised on its site failed to require a prescription for substances like the painkiller Oxycontin and the stimulant Ritalin. Google continued to accept their money and assisted the pharmacies in placing ads and improving their Web sites, according to the Justice Department. –
NY Times
This type of Google behavior is exactly what Attorney General Hood is investigating. It’s difficult to feel any sympathy for the fact Google may face
extraordinary costs to protect its equally extraordinary (and nefarious) profits. It’s no surprise that
those victimized by Google’s profit-machine support Hood’s efforts to pull back the curtain on its shady business practices. Why wouldn’t they?
Though it makes nice talking points, the crux of the amicus brief argument seems to be that Google shouldn’t bear any responsibility for bad (illegal) behavior within its online operations, even when it knowingly encourages and benefits from such behavior. Not only are the messengers suspect, but their mendacious argument is irretrievably tainted, bought and paid for by Google itself–no matter that a footnote disclaimer may claim.
Moving now back to the Google v. Hood amicus briefs, Google came up with two that we are aware of–one was filed in support of Google by the Consumer Electronics Association, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Engine Advocacy (where Julie P. Samuels–remember her from the Google Shill List–is Executive Director). Each organization is funded by Google. The CEA and CCIA alone lobby for companies whose combined market cap surely has to be somewhere around $2 TRILLION….
In other words, the two amicus briefs filed in support of Google’s attempt to stop a criminal investigation were filed solely by organizations that receives funding from Google both directly and indirectly and in some cases has received that funding for many years. Even in the world of Google influence buying where organizations seem to be created by binary fission straight out of the Benjamins, this is an odd result.
The Trichordist post also references a recently released
Public Citizen study,
Mission Creepy noting that it provides
“a great guide to Google’s labyrinthine influence buying.” I’ll leave you with these chilling words from that study:
…the amount of information and influence that Google has amassed is now threatening to gain such a stranglehold on experts, regulators and lawmakers that it could leave the public powerless to act if it should decide that the company has become too pervasive, too omniscient and too powerful.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Google, Law, Piracy
For those of you who still depend on the Chilling Effects search to find your pirated content, don’t worry, the DMCA database is still alive and well, ready to offer you a streamlined way to find illegal content online. Earlier this month Torrent Freak headlines claimed that the archive had “censored itself” and warned that the move was “a telling example of how pressure from rightsholders causes a chilling effect on free speech.” Hyperbole much? Here’s the truth.
Chilling Effects has, for the time being, de-indexed “individual notice pages” from search engines results. In a blog post, the move was explained this way:
Given increased public attention on the project, the wide variety of notices and types of claims that we catalog, and the sheer number of notices included in Chilling Effects’ database, we decided to take the interim step of de-indexing the site’s individual notice pages from search engines’ search results. Now that we have taken this step, we are hard at work building new tools and workflows that will allow us to better achieve the balance we are constantly seeking to strike between our dual missions of transparency and educating the public (on the one hand) and the strongly-felt concerns of those who send takedown notices (on the other).
Sounds nice, but the real impact of this move on creators’ rights is minor. Neither Torrent Freak nor Chilling Effects mentioned that the “balance” the folks at Chilling Effects are trying to strike includes continuing to operate a search engine that provides a direct line to illegal content.
Chilling Effects is a Where to Watch for pirated movies
In fact, it’s so easy to use that Chilling Effects’ search engine should be called a “Where to Watch” for pirate movies. I’ve written about this fact before, but given the recent hyperbolic hullabaloo I’d thought I’d take another look to see if anything has really changed? The answer is NO.
Search results removed from Google are replaced by direct link to DMCA notice containing original pirate link.
Not only does the Chilling Effects database search engine make it easy to find pirated movies, its benefactor Google, still includes referral links to when its search results are removed due to DMCA notices. For both sites it’s business as usual.
As I wrote in an earlier post, here’s how Google makes sure users are not inconvenienced by DMCA removals:
- Search for a free (pirated) movie
- Review results and find one removed due to a DMCA notice, the link replaced by this statement:
- Click the link “read the DMCA complaint.”
- Arrive at a list that includes the missing pirate link along with a bunch of others infringing links (courtesy of Chilling Effects)
- Click one of the listed pirate links and go directly to (free) movie
Chilling Effects own search provides users with an uncluttered path to piracy.
Finding pirated music and movies via Google search requires persistence since one has to comb through various types of results to find actual live links. In contrast, hop over to Chilling Effects and voilà , most every result is a stripped down list of URLs reported for piracy. It’s a simple and direct path to pirate URLs that, in fact, are vetted by rightholders (via their DMCA notices).
After the Torrent Freak headlines hit the web I went to Chilling Effects and did a search for the recently released “Boyhood.” Using Chilling Effects’ search results, it only took me a couple of minutes to find a streaming version of the film online. Google and Chilling Effects remain partners in piracy, having perfected a shell game that makes a mockery of creators’ rights and the DMCA.
For now, Chilling Effects remains what it has long been–a site where pirate links are eternal.
by Ellen Seidler | Ad Sponsored Piracy, Copyright, Film, Google, Law, Piracy
YouTube and Russian “aggregator,” piracy partners in crime?
When a bad guy steals your car stereo, to turn it into easy money, he often turn it over to a “fence” in exchange for quick cash. Wikipedia explains this criminal workflow this way:
A fence is an individual who knowingly buys stolen property for later resale, sometimes in a legitimate market. The fence thus acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may not be aware that the goods are stolen. As a verb, the word describes the behaviour of the thief in the transaction: The burglar fenced the stolen radio. This sense of the term came from thieves’ slang, first attested c. 1700, from the notion of such transactions taking place under defence of secrecy.[1]
The fence is able to make a profit with stolen merchandise because he is able to pay thieves a very low price for stolen goods…
It’s no surprise that in this digital age, criminals have turned their attention to dealing in stolen digital goods. Instead of car stereos thieves steal movies, music, etc. and, using the web advertising, convert it into income. It’s low risk way of making money and there’s a myriad of ways it can be done.
Deposed cyberlocker king Kim Dotcom did it with his Megaupload piracy pyramid scheme, but there are plenty of others who have perfected variations of this illicit business model along the way. Many, seemingly legit companies like Google have perfected the infrastructure and revenue formula so as to make it routine, right under our noses.
Most consider Google’s YouTube to be a raging success. After all, where else can you find the best cat videos or latest PR packages from ISIS terrorists in one place? It’s also a great place to “fence” stolen movies and music.
YouTube’s ads are ubiquitous and generate billions in profits, estimated to be over 1.9 billion for Google in 2013 alone. YouTube users can also share in (some of) the revenue if they set up an AdSense account and choose to monetize their uploads. According to a report in Barron’s, YouTube users make out pretty well:
…YouTube will bring in $5.9 billion in revenue this year, rising to $8.9 billion by 2016, with 53% of that paid out to users who provide the clips.
In cases where users upload work they actually own rights to, it’s great. Problem is, a lot of those people collectively pocketing 3.1 billion–in many cases–don’t own what they upload. These leeches set up channels, upload pirated content, and make money. Of course, YouTube as enabler-in-chief still pockets the majority of the profits, rightful ownership be damned.
When placing a myriad of advertisements adjacent or on videos, YouTube makes ZERO effort to vet the content for ownership. It doesn’t require any proof that uploaders own rights; it just assumes they will honor copyright law. Yeah, just like a fence assumes that every car stereo he receives wasn’t stolen from someone else.
When posed with the question as to whether it can “determine copyright ownership” YouTube justifies this hands off approach with this carefully crafted response:
YouTube isn’t able to mediate rights ownership disputes. When we receive a complete takedown notice, we remove the content as the law requires. When we receive a valid counter notification we forward it to the person who requested the removal. After this, it’s up to the parties involved to resolve the issue in court.
Mediating a dispute once something is uploaded is NOT equivalent to vetting content ownership prior to upload, yet YouTube apologists continue to claim that to do so would “stifle innovation” and “limit free expression” online. I’m not entirely sure how cracking down on thievery stifles innovation, but it makes for a good soundbite doesn’t it? How would vetting certain content before users are allowed to profit from it limit anything, aside from criminal behavior? Oh right, it could lower profits. That’s what this is really about.
YouTube claims be the broadcaster for the 21st century, yet can you imagine NBC airing a movie and earning income from advertising in the process without having cleared the rights prior to doing so? When my documentary aired on various PBS stations I had to document ownership and submit detailed paperwork that verified I had permission to use various works of music used throughout the piece. When we produced our feature film we had to purchase errors and omissions insurance and license all the music used in order to protect the rights of other creators.
These practices are the cost of doing business in the creative world yet YouTube doesn’t have to do the same? Why are companies like YouTube, that generate income by screening created by others, considered exempt from standard broadcast practices? Why is their bad business behavior exempt? Why are such practices on internet considered sacrosanct?
For Google, protecting innovation means protecting profits
It’s no wonder the powers that be at Google/YouTube fight tooth and nail against any effort to rein in this copyright-evading cash cow. Since enforcing copyright would put a serious dent in YouTube’s profits, you can bet that Google will move heaven and earth to prevent that from happening. Their apologists (and lobbyists) have mastered the spin that warn enforcing copyright (in a meaningful way) is a threat to innovation. In Google parlance innovation is merely a code for growing profits.
Other companies profit too. The graphic below illustrates how the Russian aggregator, Quiz Group, either creates its own pirate puppet users, or works with them to game the YouTube monetization system by monetizing pirated movies. By joining Quiz Group YouTube users don’t need an AdSense account. In exchange for giving up 20% of any income earned, they can easily earn money when by uploading illegal content.
Ford, Microsoft, CVS, LinkedIn, Dodge, North Face, Geico and more put money in pirate pockets
On its website, Quiz Group lays claim to 5 BILLION monthly views and more than 15,000 channels. I can only imagine how many of those billions of views come from stolen goods. Advertisements, 30 seconds and longer, from LinkedIn, Ford, Dodge Ram trucks, North Face stream before the full-movie appears. Cha’-ching…money, money, money…
This pirated movie was uploaded by a user who’s part of Quiz Group, a Russian aggregator that makes monetizing YouTube videos easy.
Surely YouTube has received thousands of DMCA notices linked to videos monetized by Quiz Group, but since it only penalizes individual users (and not the masterminds) Quiz Group can continue to rake in the dough alongside Google.
Quiz Group sports its own YouTube page and claims to be “YouTube certified” and on its own website recruits with this claim, offering to cut through any copyright red tape:
…we are aware of all the problems you may face around YouTube and we know the best solutions as well. We understand how it hurts, having third party claims, facing conflicts and resolving strikes. We have been through all these stories many times and learned our lessons based on the most complicated scenarios. We have converted our experience into effective tools, you may move forward smoothly and with a high confidence, grow really fast within YouTube environment.
Clearly YouTube’s standards aren’t particularly high if they allow a shadowy this Russian piracy-for-profit model to thrive. Perhaps YouTube’s standards for “certification” mandate moneymaking over respecting copyrights owned by others ?
I attempted to “join” Quiz Group to determine how they vet affiliates. In order to be considered, I had to give them access to a Google account. It took only seconds, but not surprisingly I was rejected for not having enough subscribers (10) nor views (1,000) within the last month.
Of course I’d like to speak with a Google representatives to ask why the company develops, and sustains business relationships with self-described “YouTube” channel aggregators like Quiz Group but folks at company headquarters won’t pick up phones or respond to emails from people like me. Stonewalling is another corporate skill they’ve mastered with virtual moats encircling their shiny corporate offices in Mountain View.
After all, why shouldn’t Google look the other way when this criminal enterprise is mutually beneficial?
For the record, I easily found other YouTube users linked to Quiz Group engaged in the same scheme (see example below). Given it took me only a couple searches to find them, I don’t imagine it’s stretching the truth to assume that a good number, if not the majority of Quiz Groups affiliates are in the business of making money off pirated uploads.
I wonder how North Face, Dodge, Amazon, Microsoft, Airborne, Geico, LinkedIn, CVS and Ford feel about their advertising appearing on these stolen movies? Are they OK with YouTube, Quiz Group and this pirate making money off stolen movies (and them)?
Why don’t advertisers pressure Google to do better? YouTube could start by applying the 3 strikes policy to those, like aggregators like Quiz Group, that routinely monetize infringing content, not just penalize the (often fake) users that upload it. There are also numerous other technological safeguards that could be implemented to prevent this abuse so why don’t advertisers demand better?
We constantly hear from representatives their industry, how concerned they are about ad sponsored piracy abuse. But, as I’ve noted repeatedly on this blog, so far the advertiser’s words are a million times louder than their actions. Industry reps could exert pressure to ensure ad profits go to rights holders, but it would require some effort–obviously more than they seem willing to give.
There are also tons of YouTube pirates who bypass third party aggregators and pocket cash directly via their own AdSense accounts. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this scenario on YouTube. Time passes, but nothing changes.
Here’s a pirated copy of Paramount’s “Sliver” starring Sharon Stone. The film has been viewed over a million times earning profits for YouTube and the user who uploaded it without permission.
YouTube finds a Safe Harbor to protect its piracy profits
Aside from the advertisers, the only other way to exert pressure to change can come from Washington. Is this dirty profit scenario was what lawmakers had in mind when they crafted the “Safe Harbor” provisions of the DMCA. It’s one thing to offer service providers (like YouTube) protection from legal liability from “consequences of their users actions”, but does that also mean it’s OK to (knowingly) profit from illegal activity?
The DMCA states services providers have to “terminate” accounts of repeat infringers, but in the meantime let the tainted profits flow? It’s OK to be a criminal as long as you don’t get caught? This seems to be Google/ YouTube’s modus operandi.
I wonder if Congressman Darrell Issa, in his new role as chair of the subcommittee on the Internet, Courts, and Intellectual Property,will hold hearings on these types of nefarious business practices? He’s repeatedly voiced concern over patent trolls, what about pirate trolls? It’s been reported that discussion regarding copyright will remain the purview of the full committee, so perhaps such discussions will be handled there.
Until something changes, YouTube’s eco-system will remain a cesspool rather than a legitimate and laudable business model. For all the great stuff streaming on its pages, there’s a lot of s*&^ too…and because it’s YouTube practices business are intentionally nubilous, those who do follow the rules–like filmmakers and musicians–continue to be victimized. YouTube is the Wild West, a swamp of online fraud, where profits soar, often for those who are least deserving–morality be damned…
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Google, Law, Piracy, Politics, Tech
Censorship is a dirty word, laden with negative connotations and so it’s not surprising to see the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) dust if off (again) for use in its ongoing PR efforts to undermine rights of creators who use legal means to protect their works from online theft. The “censoring speech online” hyperbole was an effective battle cry during the SOPA debate, so why not use the same rhetoric to gin up opposition to artists’ rights and copyright law?
This time EFF’s sites are set on the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the law (passed in 1998) that set up a system whereby copyright holders could facilitate the removal of their pirated content from websites that publish it without authorization. Yesterday Maira Sutton launched a salvo on the EFF blog ominously titled, Copyright Law as a Tool for State Censorship of the Internet. Sutton warns:
The DMCA has become a global tool for censorship, precisely because it was designed to facilitate the removal of online media…
Per usual, her post is written as though online piracy is a benign, practically non-existent problem. In fact, not once does she address the ways in which copyright infringement damages damages filmmakers, authors, musicians, photographers and other creators. Don’t people working in these fields deserve protection too? Apparently not, at least as far as the EFF is concerned.
In EFF’s world, copyright itself is a a form of censorship
Conveniently ignoring the scourge of online piracy, Sutton expresses alarm that various nations around the world are using the DMCA as a template managing copyright infringement on the web. She calls it “state-mandated internet censorship” and warns of “harsher” copyright enforcement. Harsher relative to what? At the moment, many countries do very little to enforce copyright law online so use of the term seems a tad hyperbolic. Perhaps a worldwide standardization of copyright infringement protection law might be good practice for an online eco-system that has essentially become border-free.
Sutton lists 9 instances in which content was removed for allegedly political reasons via a DMCA notice. Not to minimize any wrongdoing in these particular instances, but has Ms. Sutton bothered to examine the millions of legitimate removals that occur each week worldwide? In any enforcement system there exist errors and potential for abuse, but the the truth is that the volume of legit DMCA notices far outweighs illegitimate ones.
No system is perfect. I’ve long been critical of the DMCA, though not for the reasons Ms. Sutton cites. In my experience, the intent of the “safe harbor” provision of the law is routinely sidestepped as tech companies (like EFF funder Google) continue to reap billions from unauthorized online content theft.
From a creator’s perspective the DMCA is clumsy and ultimately weighted against rights holders. Go ahead and upload a movie to YouTube. Yeah, there’s fine print under “suggestions” that politely asks, “Please be sure not to violate others’ copyright or privacy rights,” but users don’t actually have to submit any proof of ownership. It’s the job of rights holders to search for, and submit a DMCA notice to request the removal of their content day after day after day.
If an uploader responds with a counter-notice, it’s the rights holder who has to go to court to enforce a takedown. Most indie creators don’t have the money to initiate a lawsuit so in many cases it’s the uploader that–in this game–gets the last word as the content ends up back online. The default mode for YouTube and the rest of the web is “go for it.” In the end, the DMCA is all we have to fight back.
EFF’s own Chilling Effects provides an efficient search engine to find pirated links online
Ms. Sutton also asks for more transparency in the process. Fine by me as long as it doesn’t include operating a “database” that serves as a de facto search engine for pirated content like the EFF’s own Chilling Effects. Using their database of DMCA takedown notices (sent to Google and a few others) it’s easy to find direct links to pirated content around the globe. This sort of transparency is really just playing a shell game with pirate links. Remove pirate links from Google and they receive new life, and traffic, via Chilling Effects.
Of course Ms. Sutton doesn’t mention this fact, nor does she address how Chilling Effects’ republishing of reported links in their entirety is essentially an F-You to all the creators–like me–who are working within the confines of established law to protect our creative work from profiteers. The Chilling Effects database could easily provide transparency while redacting a portion of the pirate links, but its apologists choose not to. That’s not transparency, that’s facilitating theft. Apparently that’s A-OK in their book.
Speaking of “transparency,” it’s worth pointing out that Ms. Sutton also conveniently fails to acknowledge her organization’s own ties to the tech industry, entities that would have a vested interest in seeing the DMCA gutted. Her omission undermines any credibility she may have in terms of her overall arguments. Until she, and those she represents are willing to be transparent about their funding sources, and how this money influences their mission, how can we take her complaints seriously?
Censorship is a word that goes both ways. Clearly, when it comes to political speech it’s not a good thing, but neither is a system, seemingly supported by the EFF, where online piracy is allowed to run rampant. When the livelihoods of creative artists are undermined, their rights are, in fact, being suppressed.
The world exists in shades of gray, but in the EFF’s, it’s black and white–a world where censorship and copyright are considered synonyms.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Film, Google, Law, Piracy
When Google removes a pirate link from search it redirects users to very same link on Chilling Effects
Search for Gravity on Google, look for a result that’s been removed, click link provided and you’re taken to a list of infringing links for the same movie, making it easy to find and watch pirated copy of the film
Google received a lot of positive press recently with its announcement that notorious pirate sites would be demoted in its search results, but just take a look for a second at how disingenuous that claim is, and how truly duplicitous its business practices actually are. Bear with me as I explain…
Google brags that it’s a leader in fighting online piracy, making this pronouncement in its latest PR missive, its updated “How Google Fights Piracy” report:
Be Efficient, Effective, and Scalable. Google strives to implement anti-piracy solutions that work. For example, beginning in 2010, Google has made substantial investments
in streamlining the copyright removal process for search results.
The report goes on:
Nevertheless, online piracy still remains a challenge, and Google takes that challenge seriously. We develop and deploy anti-piracy solutions with the support of hundreds of Google employees.
This braggadocio makes for good soundbites but is really just more corporate baloney. In truth, here’s what really happens when Google removes pirate links from search results in response to a DMCA takedown notice:
- Search for a free (pirated) movie
- Review results and find one removed due to a DMCA notice, the link replaced by this statement:
- Click the link “read the DMCA complaint.”
- Arrive at a list that includes the missing pirate link along with a bunch of others infringing links (courtesy of Chilling Effects)
- Click one of the listed pirate links and go directly to (free) movie
So, let’s get this straight…Google waxes on how “seriously” it tackles online piracy, about how hard hundreds of employees work to “deploy anti-piracy solutions” yet–with a wink, wink and a nudge, nudge–it redirects users to the very same links it boasts about removing. Google could just as well call this its “link-finder” tool.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at the examples above and below. I chose a couple recent, popular films (Dracula Untold and Gravity), searched on Google, ended up at Chilling Effects and–voilà—quickly found what I was looking for. In fact, I didn’t find just one infringing link, but dozens.
How convenient! This makes it much easier to find a pirated copy of the film. Thanks Google. 🙂 Thanks Chilling Effects. 🙂 Thanks for protecting online pirates and ensuring that free (stolen) movies remain easy-to-find online no matter how many DMCA takedown notices filmmakers and musicians send in an effort to safeguard their work.
Searched for Dracula Untold on Google, found result that’s been removed, clicked the link provided and ended up at list that included a bunch of working pirate links for same movie
I’m sure attorneys for Google and Chilling Effects have made sure that this setup conforms to the law while they publicly defend the operation as providing “transparency.” Google admits as much on its own web pages:
We link in our search results to the requests published by Chilling Effects in place of removed content when we are able to do so legally.
And, while both entities may follow the letter of the DMCA, clearly neither Google nor Chilling Effects care much about respecting its intent. It’s also worth noting that Google’s report on piracy fails mention its “legal” reposting of pirate links or its connection to Chilling Effects.
If folks at Google were seriously interested in doing something about online piracy, do you really believe they would provide direct links to the very same infringing content its employees had worked so hard to remove?
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Google, Law, Tech
Google removes pirate links, Chilling Effects reposts them
In the wake of Google’s move to allegedly downgrade search results linking to notorious pirate websites, it’s worth looking at another de facto search engine, closely linked to Google, that so far seems impervious to calls for change. In many ways it renders Google’s removal of reported infringing links, moot. The “search engine” I’m referring to is none other than Chilling Effects, a Google supported DMCA database operated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) and a consortium of law clinics.
This database archiving DMCA takedown notices reported to Google (and a few other service providers) was supposedly created to provide “transparency” for the DMCA process, but unfortunately it’s also gained a reputation for being used as a de facto cudgel by service providers like Google to dissuade rights holders sending takedown notices. After all, before one sends a takedown notice to Google one must acknowledge this warning:
Please note that a copy of each legal notice we receive is sent to a third-party which may publish and annotate it (with your personal information removed). As such, the content submitted in this form will be forwarded to Chilling Effects (http://www.chillingeffects.org) for publication…For products like Google Web Search, a link to your published notice will be displayed in Google’s search results in place of the removed content.
Using Chilling Effects to find pirated music and movies is easier than using Google search
What’s even more troubling is the content of the database itself. Yes, Google might reluctantly remove a pirate link from search results, but the infringing link lives on–conveniently available via Chilling Effects. In effect, the database acts a shadow site for pirate links removed from Google search. Using Chilling Effects to search for pirated movies and music is actually easier that using Google. Using Google, one has to search through various results in order to actually find valid links. Meanwhile, search results on Chilling Effects provide results that offer infringing links in a convenient, clean lists. Great for would-be thieves–not so great for content creators.
This morning, using the Chilling Effects database search engine, I was able to quickly find active pirated streams for the recently released movie, Dracula Untold*. All I had to do was type in the title, click my mouse, and choose a link from the DMCA notices that popped up in the results. I chose to use a DMCA notice sent to Google by NBC Universal that reported 762 infringing links. See the graphic below to see how just how simple it was.
Chilling Effects’ refusal to redact the actual infringing links included in DMCA notices has long been a source of contention. Now, however, it seems that some clever piracy entrepreneurs have taken it to a new, efficient extreme by creating a search engine that can leverage links reported via DMCA notices stored by Chilling Effects to provide users with access to pirated movies and music.
According to TorrentFreak a site called FileSoup offers both a search engine for (removed) torrent links, but has also developed new technology dubbed Necromancer that according to claims, will crawl the Chilling Effects database and Google’s own transparency report for DMCA notices it has received:
The operators of FileSoup also addressed indirect search engine takedowns. Every week rightsholders force Google to remove torrent listings from its search results. For this problem FileSoup says it has a solution, and a controversial one it is too.
The team behind the site say they have developed a web crawler designed to pull the details of content subjected to DMCA notices from two sources – Google’s Transparency Report and the Chilling Effects Clearing House. From here the links are brought back to life.
“We created a technology that crawls DMCA notices and resurrects the torrent webpage under a different URL so it can appear in search results again. It was rather complicated to sharpen it, but eventually it works pretty well. We will use it on FileSoup.com for all the websites we proxy,” FileSoup explain.
Meanwhile, according to its website, Chilling Effects claims to be performing a public service:
Our goals are to educate the public, to facilitate research about the different kinds of complaints and requests for removal–both legitimate and questionable–that are being sent to Internet publishers and service providers, and to provide as much transparency as possible about the “ecology” of such notices, in terms of who is sending them and why, and to what effect.
While its purported goals may appear laudable, one has to ask, why is it that an organization (run by a consortium of law school “clinics” and the Google-funded Electronic Frontier Foundation) can’t achieve its objective without also serving as backup source to find pirated content?
With Chilling Effects acting as a repository for pirate links removed from Google, what options do rights holders have now? We dutifully send DMCA notices to Google to protect our work from thieves, only to find our efforts are really an exercise in futility thanks to Chilling Effects? Are we supposed to send takedown notices to Chilling Effects to take down the very links we asked Google to remove in the first place? If we send a DMCA notice to Chilling Effects is it archived in the database too? Ultimately, Chilling Effects is really just a fun-house hall of mirrors where online thieves have the last laugh.
In crafting the DMCA, is this what lawmakers had in mind when they carved out a “safe harbor” provision? Does the Chilling Effects database really protect innovation online? At the moment, the site’s chief role seems to be as a resource for those who want to rip off creators. Chilling Effects is not working in the public’s interest, it’s working in the pirate’s.
*For the record, this is how I conducted my search using Chilling Effects database:
- Reviewed Rotten Tomatoes to find a current/popular film title.
- Went to Chilling Effects and entered film’s title (Dracula Untold) into search.
- Clicked randomly one of the first results in those infringing links listed.
- The DMCA notice I clicked on happened to be from NBCUniversal (to Google) and included 700+ links. I selected one near the top and it took me to a full stream of the film online.
