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Google ordered to censor 'torrent', 'megaupload' and more words
The French Supreme Court has ruled that Google should censor the words ‘torrent’, ‘rapidshare’ and ‘megaupload’ from its Instant and Autocomplete search services. Music industry group SNEP asked the court to stop the terms from coming up in Google’s searches because, it claimed, the Chocolate Factory was thereby facilitating …
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:07 GMT Lord Voldemortgage
Re: Zut alors!
Are they really banning all results containing the word "torrent"?
No.
They are just making it less likely that someone who wasn't looking for this sort of thing in the first place would find it. Which will obviously solve the whole issue of piracy at a stroke.
I guess they might cause moderate inconvenience to an extremely forgetful or dsylexic pirate this way.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 14:39 GMT Christoph
Isn't it lucky ...
... that there's only a finite number of words that could be used to describe the pirate downloads, and that none of them conflict with other uses for those words. In any language.
"SNEP chief David El Sayegh" - how long before they use 'Sayegh' to mean 'torerent'? One day? Maybe two?
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Thursday 19th July 2012 14:43 GMT Senior Ugli
its easier to search at the well know torrent sites that are pretty reliable than searching google to go to some malware site.
Also all you have search for for a http download is "whatever rar" or "whatever zip" and there will be links through to mediafire, uploaded, 4shared etc. Rapidshare is crap nowadays and we all know what happened to megaupload - dickheads!!!
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Thursday 19th July 2012 14:46 GMT BristolBachelor
Epic FAIL, and no messing
"Supreme Court has reversed the decision, saying that the relief sought by the group was likely to prevent or partially stop infringements."
Perhaps someone should sit these people down and tell them what a computer is, then perhaps how to use one, and maybe even as far as what the internet is. If they still think that what they have suggested is likely to "prevent or partially stop infringements", take them out the back and retire them.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 14:59 GMT Ken Hagan
Re: know-it-all teenagers
If you think banning "torrent" from auto-complete will "prevent or partially stop infringements" then it is you who needs to be taken out the back and retired. This measure doesn't even stop you from searching for torrent. It merely forces you to type the word into the search box rather than clicking on an auto-complete. If I'd invented this story to lampoon tech-illiterates within the legal system, you'd be first in the queue to tell me how ridiculous it was and how "real judges have three digit IQs, you know".
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:00 GMT imanidiot
Re: Epic FAIL, and no messing
Thats not what he said or intended.
But come on! This rules shows clear lack of understanding of the matter at hand. It's not going to change ANYTHING. (I mean, who needs auto-complete in the first place? Sure it's handy at times, but typing in the word torrent takes maybe 0.25 seconds?)
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Epic FAIL, and no messing
Or maybe they understand them much better than you. The judgement actually points out explicitly that the links are not necessarily hosting pirated contents, that the users are responsible, not Google, BUT that Google Suggest always linked first to pirated content links - because surprisingly, shockingly, incredibly, those are the most popular. when people look for terms like "Megaupload"...
They only say it will make it "more difficult" the search for illegal sites, without expecting it to be "fully effective".
A well-balanced decision, that's not overreaching in any way. They are explicitly *not* trying to stop all access to illegal content by somebody who is voluntarily looking for it. They are explicitly *not* confusing Google with the provider of illegal content.
So, if you're looking for Chinese-style censorship, it's just not here.
Go have a look:
http://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/832_12_23884.html
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Friday 20th July 2012 06:44 GMT Alpha Tony
'A well-balanced decision'
I think you mean 'the thin end of the wedge'.
It IS censorship. Sure - its censorship of something apparently meaningless and pointless, but it is still censorship carried out at the request of commercial interests without them even proving there will be any real benefit to their business or consideration of the impact on freedom of speech.
Does this one change have any significant impact on the daily web useage of normal French people ? Non.
Should they be worried about what it says about their legal system and the potential for it's misuse by large commercial interests? Absolument!
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Thursday 19th July 2012 20:55 GMT Fibbles
Re: FINE!
The judgement isn't intended to stop you torrenting. It's intended to stop Google from incidentally advertising pirate movies and such.
If you go to Google and type in 'Iron Man 2012' autocomplete is likely to give you options such as 'Iron Man 2012 Cam DivX .torrent'. As a result of this judgement if you do the same search in France then you won't get any of the piracy related suggestions appearing in autocomplete (supposedly). You'll still get the full uncensored search results when you hit enter though.
It's the same logic proponents of the CleanFeed used to use. It won't stop people who are actively looking for pirate content (kiddie porn in the case of CleanFeed) but it will stop your average Joe from just stumbling across it by accident.
To be honest I think the case was a massive waste of time and money for all involved. It won't have the impact SNEP hopes it will and it's yet one more step down the road of censorship for the French government. That said, the sky isn't falling either which you'd be forgiven for thinking was the case considering some of the hysterical posts by my fellow commentards.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:00 GMT Grubby
stupid
Oxford should remove words from their dictionary then because it too is an index that people can search... People should not be allowed to say words like Torrent or download either as speaking is still the number one method of communication in the world last time I checked.
The media industry has been too slow to react to the changing times so rather than utilise the technology to provide their content they are trying to maintain their stubborn square peg round hole methodology and go against the developments.
The internet is ultimately a communication tool, you can try to word it differently but it creates a link from a to b, and c, and d and e... This linkage enables the consumer to directly communicate with the creator, removing a lot of the requirement of the 'provider' i.e. the record labels. So all this bull about 'people are harming the music industry by downloading' is wrong, the industry itself is harming the industry by trying to ensure all 'traffic' (traffic in this case is media) goes via them.
It's the same with energy companies, in fact many service or content providers, if you are not the producer you are merely a bottleneck which channels the content and distributes it to the consumer, i.e. you add nothing to the original product and take a cut...
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Friday 20th July 2012 14:22 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: Obvious solution.
@Chalky White of The Mirror "a bit of a non-event if you don't like dipping bread in stinky, melted cheese"
This is a gross slur on Swiss cuisine. There is also a dish called Raclette, where you dip boiled potatoes in stinky, melted cheese.
I remember my first Raclette meal. When we finished the first plateful of melted cheese, we asked each other what the next course might be. More melted cheese. And then more.
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Friday 20th July 2012 18:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Obvious solution.
Yes, I'd forgotten about Raclette. And now I've lost my appetite.
Goes without saying the scenery is wonderful - but the entertainment is about as dire as the cuisine! Last time I was there I ended up watching Fawlty Towers on the World Service (while eating ready meals from the local supermarket). Even the omelette and chips at the top of the main ski slope was bland - and they weren't too impressed with me curling up laughing when the lady I was with put sugar on hers, but that was the high point of the meal by a mile!
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:06 GMT JimmyPage
I think people are missing the point
which has nothing to do with piracy, and everything to do with a judicial system starting to assert it's control over the internet.
Once the principle is accepted by the sheeple (bearing in mind how much of the internet we have lost in the name of child pornography, and terrorism) it's a simple administrative task to get whatever the government of the day doesn't like banned.
Hasn't Google already had to nobble autocomplete in China ?
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:19 GMT Penguin
Re: I think people are missing the point
I worry that it's even worse than the judicial system exerting control on the internet, the statement;
“This decision in principle is a first in France, which shows that search engines should participate in the regulation of the internet,” SNEP chief David El Sayegh said in a canned statement.
says to me that they are encouraging a foreign private company to police the access of information for a whole country and washing their hands of resposibilty for the whole thing. Participate how, and with what oversight? I know Google “Do no evil” but what’s to stop them from blocking searches to other search engines that don’t censor questionable material? I bet that Googles army of high priced lawyers could make the line “Participating in the regulation of the internet by filtering access to unscrupulous search engines” fly (extreme example, I know).
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Thursday 19th July 2012 21:01 GMT Fibbles
Re: I think people are missing the point
'I know Google “Do no evil” but what’s to stop them from blocking searches to other search engines that don’t censor questionable material?'
Google manipulating search results in order to give themselves an advantage over their competitors? I can already hear the lawyers in Brussels rubbing their hands together with glee...
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:12 GMT Eponymous Cowherd
Completely Quackers
And its going to completely bugger up the career of Marion Torrent
I imagine these people are going to be a bit pissed off, too:-
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:32 GMT Oninoshiko
I have a solution for google!
"We have disabled autocomplete for all users in france due to the unreasonable demands of the french government that we censor it. If you desire auto complete back please contact your MP, Thank you."
Although, it could backfire. Finding the google page more responsive, they may call their MPs and thank them.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 16:43 GMT Rabbit80
How about Google removes all results for a particular search term they receive a takedown request for?
Example - they receive a takedown request for "The Amazing Spider Man" and they simply return a "No results found" page for any searches containing that term - whether that search includes other terms such as "torrent" or not. It saves them the hassle of having to check each link in the takedown and ensures that their service will never point to infringing copies again! What could the studios possibly complain about?
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Good on the French
Google really needs to be taken down a notch or three.
I reported a page on their Blogger service that was infringing my copyright and it took them a whole week to finally take it offline, only for another page to pop up on their service and now I'm waiting again.
To add insult to injury their "ChillingEffects" website, part of Google's "transparency" report, publicly displays all the links to infringing content! It's like a pirates cove. I'm sure they thought that was pretty smart of them.
Google have no respect for other people's work. I hope justice will give them a good lesson.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 15:53 GMT Don Jefe
Word of Mouth
I learned about Demonoid from a friend of a friend. I never inquired about trying to "steal" anything, or even download a file. It was more of a check out this link: www.somethingelse.uk.suck. Any questionable things I have done online did not require a 'Google' search.
Not to be a total douche but it seems that the EU only gets rowdy about something if it is a company from the U.S. and they think they can make a few bucks through litigation. The vast majority of the companies discussed in EU court issues are the largest technology providers in the EU: And are U.S. based. Sounds like envy to me... Just think. Some of our larger charities could have bankrolled some of your failing partners for less than their associated charities got.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 17:24 GMT Charlie Clark
Re: Word of Mouth
You are suffering from observational bias. You are only likely to hear of such cases which involve American companies. In certain industries American companies predominate, largely due to the size of the domestic market, the importance of the English language and the US venture capital market.
Other examples demonstrating a more even-handed approach: fines on price-fixing in the DRAM market; denying additional subsidies to German state banks; forcing BAA to sell Gatwick; unbundling electricity transmission networks from production capacity...
France is a special case with a strong history of free speech, a very independent judiciary (recently sentenced an ex-president); and a strong ip rights lobby (musicians, artists, writers but also the fashion industry). Previous cases have also involved sales of knock-off handbags but also Nazi memorabilia. You could also include the recent law criminalising denial of acts of genocide (the holocaust but also the massacre of Armenians in Turkey).
Nevertheless, I can see the judgement could be overturned at European level as unfair interference. The politicians tend to drag the feet in such cases but the courts would be obliged to respect a judgement.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 20:39 GMT Don Jefe
Re: Word of Mouth
Charlie Clark you are correct. My observational bias has shown that almost all of the significant financial fines the EU has ever made are pointed at the American companies that drive the 'knowledge economy' of Europe. Every other example you cited had to do with counterfeit products, genocide or Nazi's.
Just a few billion USD would save the whole Euro Zone and several U.S. companies are levied at that level (with more fines to come) but the reality is it is cheaper to keep selling businesses and consumers in the EU stuff from America and just wait for it all to fall down and right it off the books.
If you don't want Apple, Microsoft, IBM, EMC, Dell, HP, UPS, URS, Betchel, Johnson & Johnson, GDI, and arguably even BAE and BP (list goes on) in the EuroZone then you shouldn't have left all your manufacturing capabilities and blue collar workers out to dry. EU is a small market with little free spend (compared to the U.S). It's fun to get a few bucks off of them but it's almost a marketing effort and not a sales/market penetration effort.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 21:16 GMT Fibbles
Re: Word of Mouth
One could argue that more American companies appear before the EU beak because they keep insisting on trying to apply American laws to their EU markets (Google and Facebook ignoring EU privacy law, Apple ignoring EU consumer rights, etc). It's still likely to be observation bias though. The amount of EU companies I read about getting dragged before American courts is ridiculous, enough to think that the American courts are merely a vehicle for protectionism. What's more likely though is that I don't care as much about American companies appearing before American courts and therefore don't read about them as often.
FYI the EU is the largest market in the world.
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Friday 20th July 2012 01:44 GMT Invidious Aardvark
Re: Word of Mouth
"Just a few billion USD would save the whole Euro Zone". Are you serious? Have you seen how much money they've already
squanderedinvested to help Greece, Spain, etc.? A few billion is a drop in the ocean.Besides, you might want to keep that money and use it to pay off that $15 trillion debt you're sitting on. Should cover a few months of interest whilst the US sorts out balancing its books and gets its economy running with a surplus...
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Friday 20th July 2012 00:12 GMT Esskay
Re: Well I just....
Interesting - I typed "Tor" into google and it came up with an anonymous network proxy service, perfect for (trying to) prevent interested parties from determining my I.P address.
To paraphrase Dirk Gently:
"I think you will agree, my methods did not take me where I wanted to go, but they have taken me to where I needed to be."
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Thursday 19th July 2012 19:49 GMT tom dial
A foot in the door
Even though the decision doesn't address search results, the French Supreme Court has provided a clear precedent for additional internet search engine censorship. This particular instance is pretty inconsequential, but the tenth or hundredth one on may not be. We have already the examples of China, Russia, and now France. SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA have been deferred, but the **AA and the like doubtless are busily arguing their cause to US Senators and Congresspersons, and will get their way as soon as they come up with a way that doesn't raise a large enough hue and cry to make the legislators feel insecure in their jobs. Unfettered low cost privacy secure (?) communications are as frightening to governments as to copyright rent-seekers. Holding them at bay will require constant attention and objection to the smallest incursion.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 21:42 GMT Gannon (J.) Dick
Sorry
Self-absorbed twits not allowed to do as they damn please. Film at 11 all next month.
Wait for it: Eric is preparing his "creep right up to the line" speech, and while you wait, imagine that no Supreme Court anywhere censored Google for anything ... Would that be Net Neutrality ? No it would be a data silo wasteland worthy of your worst nightmare.
Google are self-appointed champions of the worst tyranny cyberspace has to offer.
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Friday 20th July 2012 00:24 GMT Esskay
I'm Surprised
I always thought the first search strings to be removed from autocomplete in this day and age would be "how to make a bomb", or words to that effect - but apparently the interests of Big Media rate higher than the "terrorism" threats that have been jammed down our throats for the last 11 years.
I get the feeling that the interested parties are trying to creep into online censorship, rather than kick the door down - small moves like this mean that anyone who visits a torrent site is doing so "deliberately", and therefore is a "terrorist/pirate/criminal". This paves the way for future legislation to further crack down on anyone who uses a 21st century method of acquiring data, rather than Big Media's own outdated 19th century model. Sadly, their blanket "torrent=bad" approach is unlikely to be seen as a good thing by any educated consumer (not that the politicians will care - as long as someone has their hand down the front of their pants they'll do what they're told).
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Friday 20th July 2012 09:05 GMT Marco van de Voort
Legal torrents
What does this spell for legal torrents? Most *nix distributions have torrents mentioned on their main download page.
I personally don't want to go back to the days that *nix sites were unreachable for at least a week after every download. Torrent solves that, despite some minor Hollywood collateral damage,
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Friday 20th July 2012 09:34 GMT yossarianuk
Linux isos
What about the fact that most linux distributions including Mandriva (French) deliver their LEGAL iso's through torrents.
In fact the last time I looked Centos only delivered their 32bit DVD .iso through torrent ONLY (Linux unlike Windows went true 64 bit ages ago)
This is one of the most pathetic, stupid laws I have ever heard.
We should have just left them to the Nazis.
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Friday 20th July 2012 10:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Linux isos
I don't think you'll have too many problems there.
If you go to google, and type in "Mandriva Torrent" and hit enter, I'm pretty sure you'd get what you were looking for.
All this is saying is that "torrent" won't work in autocomplete, much like "porn" doesn't now, so you wouldn't be able to type in "Mandriva tor " and expect google to do the rest of the work for you.
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Friday 20th July 2012 15:03 GMT Nick_Healey
Why Google? Why not Operating Systems?
If your OS removed your attempts to type in or click on or view the word "torrent" that would be a lot more efficient. And Microsoft/Apple are just as big a part as Google in getting your torrent going, seeing as they get you online in the first place.
And a device that clipped on your head and gave powerful shocks if you ever thought the word "torrent"... we're just stopping piracy here.
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