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 notworking 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:
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.
What about Google’s oft-repeated claim that its search engine does not drive traffic to pirate websites? Will Google apologists admit it–was Google wrong all this time? Just last week in an update to its report How Google Fights Piracy this assertion was repeated:
1. Search is not a major driver of traffic to pirate sites. [emphasis added] Google Search is not how music, movie, and TV fans intent on pirating media find pirate sites. All traffic from major search engines (Yahoo, Bing, and Google combined) accounts for less than 16% of traffic to sites like The Pirate Bay.17 In fact, several notorious sites have said publicly that they don’t need search engines, as their users find them through social networks, word of mouth, and other mechanisms.18 Research that Google co-sponsored with PRS for Music in the UK further confirmed that traffic from search engines is not what keeps these sites in business.19 These findings were confirmed in a recent research paper published by the Computer & Communications Industry Association.20
The contention that disappearing undesirable entries from search results would substantially prevent piracy is flawed, however. The solutions to online infringement have little to do with search.
The study supposedly had stats to back this up:
Traffic statistics in 2011 indicated that a mere 15% of traffic to alleged “rogue sites” was referred by search…Evidence suggests that sites associated infringement receive relatively little traffic from search.
So what’s the truth? Has precipitous drop in traffic to pirates sites following Google’s downgrade shown, once and for all, that Google flacks were full of hot air? The answer to that question seems clear.
While this drop in traffic to sites like Kickass.to is welcome, unfortunately it doesn’t mean that pirate links have disappeared from Google search, not at all.
Well-known Pirate sites have been replaced in Google search by lesser known ones
The most notorious pirate sites may have disappeared from top results, but unfortunately they’ve been replaced by lesser known sites peddling the same stolen content. I wrote about this last week and TorrentFreak noticed the same trend:
A search for “Breaking Bad torrent” previously featured Kickass.to, Torrentz.eu and Isohunt.com on top, but these have all disappeared. Interestingly, in some cases their place has been taken by other less popular torrent sites.
Bottom line, it’s progress against the scourge of online piracy, but more work needs to be done by Google and other search engines.
It’s a tired old tale, but one that bears repeating over and over again. Google’s search engine is the go-to resource for those seeking pirated content online. There’s a long line of Google critics, myself included, who decry the search giant’s defiant and arrogant attitude in response to requests that it modify its search engine to mitigate damage done to content creators by online pirates.
James Murdoch, co-COO of 21st Century Fox has added his voice to calls for change, speaking out at a TV conference in Cannes. According to a report in The Guardian, Murdoch took issue with Google’s response to News Corp CEO Robert Thomson’s recent characterization of Google search as “a platform for piracy” in a letter sent to an EU commissioner.
“There’s no question that they can do more. A lot more. Certainly Google’s not right in saying they’re doing more than anyone. That just isn’t true,” he said.
“The problem with Google … Actually, let’s not personalize this. The problem with search-driven discovery, if the content is there and it’s illegal and you’re just selling clicks as a big ad network, you have every incentive for that illegal programming to be there. That’s fundamentally not really good enough.”
No, it isn’t good enough. As I wrote last week, Google’s claim that it’s a leader in the fight against piracy is gobbledygook. Of course Google, being Google, can say pretty much anything its wants since content creators are powerless in the face of its corporate largess and lobbying. A recent story in the Washington Post, “Google, once disdainful of lobbying, now a master of Washington influence”shined a spotlight on the search giant’s growing domination (and control).
The behind-the-scenes machinations demonstrate how Google — once a lobbying weakling — has come to master a new method of operating in modern-day Washington, where spending on traditional lobbying is rivaled by other, less visible forms of influence.
That system includes financing sympathetic research at universities and think tanks, investing in nonprofit advocacy groups across the political spectrum and funding pro-business coalitions cast as public-interest projects.
The rise of Google as a top-tier Washington player fully captures the arc of change in the influence business.
When even big corporate entities like News Corp and 21st Century Fox appear powerless in the face of Googleiath’s growing dominance, you know we’re in trouble. Perhaps the European Union will punish Google for anti-trust violations, but even threats of a 6 billion dollar fine are unlikely to change Google’s scorched earth business practices and tainted profits. As its influence expands and evolves, so too does the moral code by which it operates. Problem is, it’s a code of Google’s own making.
Google comes in a close second to word-of-mouth in path to piracy poll
A while back one of the world’s most popular pirate websites, LetMeWatchThis went through tumultuous times as its domain name was hijacked and cloned by other not-so-nice pirates. According to torrentfreak.comthe hijacking, and general confusion led to the domain switching to an entirely new domain, primewire.ag:
One of the largest unauthorized streaming movie websites on the Internet is at the center of what is probably the most confusing mess ever to hit the sector. Various hackings, hijackings, domain changes and nefarious happenings have turned 1Channel, LetMeWatchThis, PrimeWire.ag and Vodly.to into a maze of smoke and mirrors through which no regular user has a hope of navigating.
While it’s not clear if the dust as settled, what is clear is that someone operating the domain name primewire.ag is running a website full of illegal links to thousands of stolen movies. The pirate site, as mentioned in my earlier post today, makes money via advertising (mostly major American brands) but as I was researching the site for my post, I noticed another feature worth highlighting. In its sidebar, the website has posted a poll asking this question: How did you find us through our new name?
According to the results users turned, in large numbers, to that tried and true source for pirated content worldwide, Google search. Nearly 200,000 (29.88 %) users chose Google as their path to the site, second only to word of mouth which took top honors at 43%. While the poll is not scientific, it does provide more anecdotal evidence to what most believe to be true, Google is a major sign post on the path to online piracy. Even when pirate sites run into trouble with other pirates hacking and stealing their domains (ironic isn’t it), leave it to Google to come to the rescue.
While researching the issue of sexism in advertising for a piece I posted earlier today I came across this series of ads sponsored by the United Nations and produced by Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai in which they employed a simple Google search and the subsequent “auto-complete” results to illustrate just how pervasive sexism remains in our world.
Click to enlarge
According to a post on the UN Women website, “the searches confirm the urgent need to continue making the case for women’s rights, empowerment and equality, a cause the organization is pursuing around the world.” The site provides more background on the ad series:
…uses genuine Google searches to reveal the widespread prevalence of sexism and discrimination against women. Based on searches dated 9 March, 2013 the ads expose negative sentiments ranging from stereotyping as well as outright denial of women’s rights.
“When we came across these searches, we were shocked by how negative they were and decided we had to do something with them,” says Christopher Hunt, Art Director of the creative team. The idea developed places the text of the Google searches over the mouths of women portraits, as if to silence their voices.
“The ads are shocking because they show just how far we still have to go to achieve gender equality. They are a wake up call, and we hope that the message will travel far,” adds Kareem Shuhaibar, copy writer.
Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai created a video to highlight their findings, “The Autocomplete Truth.” It’s worth watching (below):
According to Google, its auto-complete search predictions are “a reflection of the search activity of users and the content of web pages.” Since the UN campaign was created in 2013 I thought I’d check Google for a local update of such “activity.” I can’t attest to what search results might appear in Dubai, but according to Google search results I got today (from a U.S. IP), the search term “women should” ismagically transformed into “women shouldn’t” thenauto-completed with the phrases “should not vote” and “should stay at home.”
When I searched using “women are” the auto-completes transformed it into the phrases “women aren’t funny, women are shallow, and women are like bacon.” The final phrase provided would could be considered a case of reverse sexism, “women are better than men.”
Frankly,I’d much prefer seeing an auto-complete that read “women are equal to men.” 🙂 Clearly Google’s algorithms and our society still need work.
As an indie film and broadcast journalism veteran, I'll share my perspectives on issues of interest to the creative community and beyond--Ellen Seidler
Google removes pirate links, Chilling Effects reposts them
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.
