by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Piracy, Politics, Tech
Today my Twitter feed was filled with Tweets cheering Google’s new “doodle,” a rainbow flag festooned with various icons of athletes in action. Below it was a quote from the Olympic Charter:
“The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.” –Olympic Charter
Sadly, while I am all for athletes and rainbow flags–and focusing attention on the fact that Russia is hosting the Olympics despite enacting abhorrent anti-gay legislation –Google makes me gag.
It’s not the message, but the messenger–a hypocrite to its very corporate core. If Google as a company truly believed in “human rights” why does it continue to disregard the rights of artists at every turn? Perhaps those who doodle for Google might want to review the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 27, paragraph 2) which includes this passage:
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Why is Google so keen on “fair play” and the rights of athletes to compete, but when it comes to artists, not so much?
Since we’re asking the question, perhaps we should also ask why Google doodles about non-discrimination at the Olympics but donates millions to ALEC, an organization actively working to deny Americans their right to vote?
For the record, recently discovered documents also reveal ALEC’s troubling anti-gay history, not surprising for a group known for its right-wing positions and affiliations.
For Google the Olympics controversy provides the company with yet another opportunity to leverage its (global) influence to gain positive reviews, this time by hijacking of the Olympic spirit.
The persecution of LGBT people in Russia is an outrage that deserves every bit of attention it’s received–but given the context and the company, today’s rainbow doodle comes off as a cynical public relations ploy by a company posturing to obscure a truly malevolent soul.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Law, Piracy, Politics, Tech
Creativity ‘Continues to Thrive,’ in spite of SOPA’s defeat, not because of it
In a post marking the anniversary of SOPA’s defeat (Stop Online Piracy Act) Google asks users share a graphic to celebrate. “Since we combined our voices to stop SOPA, creativity has continued to thrive — both on and off the web.” Their celebratory note also includes this caveat:
Of course, piracy remains a major concern and Google does its part to fight it, but, two years after SOPA, it’s clear that the Internet has been really good for creativity and entertainment.
Frankly, I’ve never heard artists or entertainers make the argument that the internet isn’t “good” for creativity or entertainment. Yet, during the SOPA debate, as red herrings flew, content creators became the enemy in and us vs. them debate as hyperbolic and often mendacious rhetoric echoed across the web.
SOPA anniversary aside, this week marked another milestone– 100 Million takedown requests to remove search links to pirated music have been sent to Google. Note this total only includes takedown notices sent by the music industry. Don’t forget to add those millions sent to Google for pirated movies, photographs, books, and more.
If piracy is really a “major concern” for Google why do illegal sites still dominate in searches for music and movies? Here’s a graphic that is a tad more “balanced” than the one Google wants you to share.
Below is another graphic that worth considering when reading about Google’s rather disingenuous statements about their concerns re: online piracy. Yes, creativity continues to thrive online, but just image what could happen if Google actually took serious steps to stop supporting online piracy? It would be nice to see the trend lines in the chart below going down rather than steadily climb.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Piracy, Tech
Google’s foot dragging in fight against online piracy is in spotlight again.
In a piece published today in The Hill, “Google’s 100 Million Notices,” the RIAA’s Chairman and CEO Cary Sherman asks (again) why the Silicon Valley behemoth isn’t doing more to fight online piracy and police pirate links in search results:
In fact, when a user searches for virtually any prominent artist and song and “mp3,” the first result served up by Google’s own auto-complete function is usually mp3skull.com — a site that’s received more than two million music piracy notices and is among the top offenders on Google’s own public listing of sites receiving the most piracy notices. More broadly, rogue sites we analyzed managed to appear on page 1 of search results over 98% of the time in the searches we conducted.
What’s even more frustrating is that a significant portion of our piracy notices are repeat notices for the same song found on the same illicit site. So the enforcement system we operate under requires us to send a staggering number of piracy notices – 100 million and counting to Google alone—and an equally staggering number of takedowns Google must process. And yet pirated copies continue to proliferate and users are bombarded with search results to illegal sources over legal sources for the music they love.
It’s a question many of us have been asking Google for very a long time. Sherman offers up “five point plan” that Google could (and should) easily implement to mitigate its role as a gateway to illegal downloads online:
Our five-point plan is simple, straightforward and readily achievable by Google and others in search:
- fulfill the admirable promise to demote sites receiving extensive numbers of piracy notices
- make sure that the “take down” of a song is meaningful – not repopulated online two seconds later
- educate users by identifying authorized sites with a consumer-friendly “icon”
- stop leading users to illegal sites through autocomplete
- give your repeat offender policies some teeth
In reality Google’s so-called updates to its search algorithms (announced in August of 2012) have been (unsurprisingly) more “bark” than “bite.”
Take a look at the results I got today when I did a quick Google search for indie film “Kyss Mig” using the terms word “download” and the movie’s title. The first page of results chock full of illegal links and torrents on notorious pirate sites like Pirate Bay and Primewire.ag.
When it comes to piracy Google search functions a lot like Google maps–but instead of helping folks find the closest gas station it leads them straight to pirated movies, music and more. There’s really no excuse…
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Law, Piracy, Tech
Yahoo China search results for our film in 2010
Piracy is OK, until it’s not
When our film And Then Came Lola was released in 2010, illegal copies were easy to find on Chinese video websites like the Youku. Search results (shown left and below) listed dozens of links to websites where you could find the full movie streaming (with subtitles). DMCA notices we sent were routinely ignored.
Search results showing dozens of pirated copies of our film on Chinese websites
Now, nearly four years later, it appears that these Chinese websites that once overlooked illegal uploads are changing their tune–at least according to this Reuters story:
Advertisers willing to put money on legal content, and the popularity of online video, have also provided incentives: China’s online video market is expected to grow by more than a third this year and see annual revenues of 12.3 billion yuan ($2 billion), according to data from Beijing-based Internet research firm iResearch.
Youku’s shift demonstrates a oft-overlooked truism about copyright–attitudes about its importance are often in the eye of the beholder. For those who denigrate copyright enforcement as antiquated and unworkable, it’s worth looking at the issue from the creator’s (or licensee’s) perspective. When that happens attitudes can shift quickly–and not just for companies.
When Instagram attempted to change its terms of service to “sell users’ photos without payment or notification,” its users were outraged and and posted comments like:
“You DO NOT have permission to use my stuff just because it’s hosted on your servers,”
“My photos will not sell without my knowledge and compensation. I spend time on my pictures.”
The company’s co-found Kevin Systrom, quickly issued a “Thankyou, we’re listening” mea culpa:
The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question. Our main goal is to avoid things like advertising banners you see in other apps that would hurt the Instagram user experience. Instead, we want to create meaningful ways to help you discover new and interesting accounts and content while building a self-sustaining business at the same time.
Ownership Rights Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Nothing about this has changed. We respect that there are creative artists and hobbyists alike that pour their heart into creating beautiful photos, and we respect that your photos are your photos. Period.
I always want you to feel comfortable sharing your photos on Instagram and we will always work hard to foster and respect our community and go out of our way to support its rights.
Bottom line, and hyperbole aside, whether it be a huge Chinese corporation or an individual Instagram user, when something’s at stake, copyright matters.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Piracy, Politics, Tech
As Google’s lobbying clout grows, so do its ties to right-wing political groups
A while back, in a post titled “The Web Ain’t Sherwood Forest–Except Maybe for the Mercatus Center, Koch Industries, A.L.E.C. and Google.” I criticized a newly released study by piracydata.org, a libertarian-sponsored website that used “splashy, but false, new data” designed to suggest that piracy is Hollywood’s fault. Turns out the site and the study was garbage, but in my piece I noted that Google’s fingerprints (and agenda) were all over the clunky propaganda effort.
It’s too bad that piracydata.org isn’t more transparent about its sugar daddy. Like many of the astro-turf anti-copyright entities this one’s tentacles can be traced back to Google, the supposedly aggrieved party whose persecution by anti-piracy advocates that inspired the site’s creation in the first place.
I also included the fact Google acknowledges its cozy relationship with the libertarian mission on its public policy page:
Our U.S. Public Policy and Government Affairs team provides support to a number of independent third-party organizations whose federally-focused work intersects in some way with technology and Internet policy. While this list is continually evolving, some examples of these organizations are: … Mercatus Center…
Yesterday Truth-Out.org published a great expose by Nick Surgey that sheds even more light on Google’s ties to right-wing political interests–interests that extend far beyond controlling the debate around copyright and content theft. The article, “The Googlization of the Far Right: Why Is Google Funding Grover Norquist, Heritage Action and ALEC? sheds more light on the fact that the Silicon Valley tech giant is underwriting a political agenda that in many ways parallels that of the notorious Koch brothers.
Organizations that received “substantial” funding from Google for the first time over the past year include Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the Federalist Society, the American Conservative Union (best known for its CPAC conference), and the political arm of the Heritage Foundation that led the charge to shut down the government over the Affordable Care Act: Heritage Action.
In 2013, Google also funded the corporate lobby group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, although that group is not listed as receiving “substantial” funding in the list published by Google.
Again, this information is not new, but it is important and deserving of ongoing scrutiny. Google’s lobbying budget in 2012 was 18.2 million dollars and the company now ranks number 8 in lobbyist spending among Washington’s influence peddlers. While Google (and Silicon Valley) have generally been associated with more “progressive” causes over the years, as Surgey points out , Google’s funding of ALEC is troubling:
There are many good reasons for brand conscious corporations to stay away from ALEC. For example, its legacy of Stand Your Ground gun laws and bills to make harder for Americans to vote, its work to repeal renewable energy laws and the ability of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases, and its efforts to privatize almost everything, are just a few of its extreme measures.
As each day passes and Google’s political influence grows, their corporate mantra “don’t be evil” seems increasingly mendacious and absurd. Perhaps the powers that be at Google should pick up some new bedtime reading. Grimm’s Fairy Tales might be a good choice. Why not begin by reading “Snow White” and note what happens to an evil queen who looks into the mirror and refuses to believe the truth?
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Politics, Tech
Piracy apologists would have us believe that it’s actually the content creators who are to blame when their movies, music and books are pirated. The rhetoric is always the same old, same old–a stale mantra of “outdated business models” and blame the victim verbiage.
This predictable tripe reemerged today on a new website called PiracyData.org that published (splashy but false) new data that supposedly supports the idea that piracy is Hollywood’s fault. According to a story in today’s Washington Post, the site was created by members of a libertarian “think tank” called the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a software engineer:
Piracydata.org was created by two tech policy researchers at the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank, and by Matt Sherman, a software engineer based in New York. The team’s leader, Jerry Brito, says he got the idea for the site after a hearing in which major content holders criticized Google for failing to do enough to combat piracy. That criticism came despite the fact that Google has taken a number of steps to prevent illegal sharing of copyrighted works.
It should be noted that Brito’s Twitter account links to page on the Mercatus Center’s website featuring a book he co-authored, “Copyright Unbalanced, From Incentive to Excess.” Hmmm, not exactly a neutral party. On piracydata.org he and his co-authors posed this question:
Do people turn to piracy when the movies they want to watch are not available legally? We’re building a dataset to help answer that question.
The single web page includes a large graphic listing the week’s top ten torrented downloads and highlights the fact the finding the movies via legit sources online is difficult, if not impossible. Their takeaway? Piracy is the fault of the distributors, not online thieves. Too bad their original graphic (and data) contained errors–a fact belatedly pointed out by the Washington Post’s Timothy B. Lee in his story which featured the provocative headline, “Here’s why Hollywood should blame itself for its piracy problems.” Lee updated his piece (and changed his headline):
Correction: The original data supplied to us by PiracyData.org was inaccurate. It showed 1 movie available for rental and 4 available for purchase. In fact, 3 are available for rental and 6 are available for purchase. We regret the error…
It’s a shame Lee didn’t also disclose his former ties to the libertarian Cato Institute and Google.
In a statement, the MPPA added , “More than half of the films they cite are in fact available to stream or download, including films they claim are not,” Their spokesman also pointed out that the popular series “The Walking Dead” was pirated 500,000 times within 16 hours even though it was available for free steaming via AMC’s website.
One would think researchers working at an institution like George Mason University would be a tad more careful to verify their findings before posting them on the web…or maybe not. Perhaps accuracy was left on the cutting room floor in favor of a more pernicious agenda. To understand what I mean it’s worth taking a harder look at the Mercatus Center and its mission.
…Our mission is to generate knowledge and understanding of the institutions that affect the freedom to prosper and to find sustainable solutions that overcome the barriers preventing individuals from living free, prosperous, and peaceful lives.
Ironic that their mission includes the phrase “freedom to prosper.” I guess that applies to prosperous thieves like Kim Dotcom, and not those who make their livings creating content (films, music, books, and more). Piracydata.org’s founders seem to take umbrage at the the ongoing criticism directed toward Google for it’s lack of accountability and transparency regarding its role in profiting from and enabling online theft. Apparently the site’s founders aren’t offended by the fact that Google has made millions off stolen and counterfeit products over the years.
It’s too bad that piracydata.org isn’t more transparent about its sugar daddy. Like many of the astro-turf anti-copyright entities this one’s tentacles can be traced back to Google, the supposedly aggrieved party whose persecution by anti-piracy advocates that inspired the site’s creation in the first place. Brito makes no bones of his allegiance to Google’s position and was quoted in Politico story saying:
“When movies are unavailable, illegal sources may be the most relevant search results…Despite what the content industry might like to see, search engines are just telling it like it is.”
The Mercatus Center was founded in 1978 by the Richard Fink, who currently serves as an executive vice president and a member of the board of directors for Koch Industries, Inc. He also happens to lead the firm’s lobbying operations in Washington. The center receives 54% of its funding from foundations and according to sourcewatch.org donors include the notorious American Legislative Exchange Council, aka ALEC. What Silicon Valley tech giant is active in promoting ALEC’s agenda? Google is, at least according to this story published on the Daily Beast this past August:
The American Legislative Exchange Council once faced a backlash for its support of Stand Your Ground and voter ID laws, losing Coca-Cola and Kraft as members. Now the advocacy group is working with companies such as Google, Facebook, and Yelp, and taking more civil libertarian stances on technology issues than it has in the past…
…ALEC’s communications and technology task force, which includes representatives from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo. (The first two companies have not previously been reported to be involved with ALEC and have not responded to requests for comment.)
Google does mention its cozy relationship with the libertarian mission on its public policy page:
Our U.S. Public Policy and Government Affairs team provides support to a number of independent third-party organizations whose federally-focused work intersects in some way with technology and Internet policy. While this list is continually evolving, some examples of these organizations are: … Mercatus Center…
Given Google’s link to the Mercatus Center’s funding (and its libertarian philosophy) is it any wonder their new astro-turf site blames big, bad Hollywood for piracy instead of the thieves who steal and monetize its movies. Piracy is flourishing not because of Hollywood’s failure, but because criminals can make money monetizing stolen content.
Piracydata.org’s data dump is clearly yet another attempt by Google, and its stealth lobbyists (dressed as academics) to muddy the debate and undermine the rights of content creators. Dueling “studies” created using lobbyist’s cash is nothing new—but please, at least be honest about who’s funding the research OK? That would really be “telling it like it is.”
Today my Twitter feed was filled with Tweets cheering Google’s new “doodle,” a rainbow flag festooned with various icons of athletes in action. Below it was a quote from the Olympic Charter:
