I wonder how this might affect the overall use and hence profits for Google. How much of their page impressions are from people searching for torrents and such? If say Bing, don't censor their results and people find it easier to locate what they want there, could it start a slow creep away?
YouTube escapes Google's piracy site smackdown
Google has admitted its own YouTube operation will not be affected by algorithm changes designed to demote pirate sites. Google announced the proposed changes on Friday in the hope of fending off new legislation designed to make it act more responsibly. From this week Google will modify its search results so that websites are …
-
-
Monday 13th August 2012 14:37 GMT ArmanX
I'm wondering how much this will change things...
Searching for "pirate bay" will probably still return that site in the first ten results. And more to the point, there are so few "legitimate" websites that use the word "torrent" along with popular movie titles that any reduction in score will have no result. Regardless of how the results are pushed down in ranking, you'll find what you were searching for. The point isn't brand loyalty if all you're doing is downloading the latest season of [insert popular TV show here], so one torrent site is as good as the next - and most of them point to each other anyway.
-
-
Monday 13th August 2012 13:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
This infographic clearly explains Google's policies.
Maybe we can call it "one company, two systems"?
-
Monday 13th August 2012 13:25 GMT Big_Ted
Google favours its own services shock story.....
Next thing you know the BBC will start running trailers advertising its own output and ignoring others.
Well of course they do, its what I would expect and don't see whats wrong, its not as if you are forced to use Google as your search service, there are others out there, Bang and Youhoo are just 2 of them.
If they were the only search engine then fair enough....
-
Monday 13th August 2012 21:36 GMT h4rm0ny
Re: Google favours its own services shock story.....
If Google base the algorithm around the proportion of content, then YouTube will be less affected, and it will be legitimate to do so. A site that hosts a million videos and gets a thousand take down requests - e.g. 99.9% legitimate content is compared to a smaller site that hosts a thousand videos and gets five hundred take down requests - i.e. only 50% legitimate content. If the algorithm were just to compare the number of take down requests, then the former site which is overwhelmingly legitimate would get penalised by the site that is plainly either aimed at pirated content or doesn't care.
Naturally the algorithm should be based around take-down requests as a proportion of the content. In which case, it may well be the case that YouTube wont be as penalised.
-
Monday 13th August 2012 14:35 GMT Turtle
Not to be taken too seriously.
Reducing the traffic it pushes to pirate sites in order to push that traffic to YouTube does not, to me, signal any great change in Google policy: it is still intent on profiting from piracy and copyright infringement on an industrial scale; it is merely cutting out the intermediaries, which might reduce its gross revenue but at the same time boost its net. Evidently it is desirous, if not to turn on profit on its YouTube acquisition, then at least to stanch the loss that it is taking.
-
Monday 13th August 2012 14:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
pirate links on YouTube
So if this works, and sites containing contested material (or links to such material) is downgraded with the exception of YouTube, surely people will just start putting more links (or 'videos' that just show a URL) to the same material on YouTube itself (which is probably what Google want).
Youtube will just fill up with 5 second videos, or comments sections containing links to torrents/filestores, etc
Expect to see lots of 'video' uploads called "<insert latest blockbuster movie title> download".
-
Monday 13th August 2012 14:37 GMT Majinboo
Its exploitable.
Bots and armies of tools will surely exploit this 'report' system to demote legitimate websites of their choosing while those who want pirated content will be able to find it without Google.
FYI Google isn't very good at finding pirate sites, it used to be much better but since last year megaupload story(maybe before) or so they have removed about 2/3 of the pirated content from Google search results, or it just finds crappy results at least when you search in English only.
-
Monday 13th August 2012 14:40 GMT John Lilburne
Yeah well ...
... the immoral arsewipes over at Google are getting some 5 million VALID takedown requests a month now. They reckoned that processing 5,000,000 a year of youtube takedowns cost them $500 million. If the rate is now at $6 billion one can see why they would want to reduce that.
The next thing to do is to target all the companies whose adverts via Google appear on pirate sites. Hit teh bastards in teh pocket and hit them hard.
-
Monday 13th August 2012 15:54 GMT Psyx
Re: Yeah well ...
5 million takedowns cost them 500 million?
I'm calling bullshit on that. $100 for a drone to read an email, spend five minutes checking the contents and another minute removing it doesn't cost a hundred bucks. Even if invalid requests swamp valid ones at 3:1, it's still bullshit.
If they're serious, I'll be only to happy to save them some cash by offering the same service at half price, and crowd-sourcing the work for $25 a pop to people.
Google are part of the problem because they offer illegal site owners money for advertising. If they cut that off then site owners wouldn't be profiting and the problem would reduce.
-
-
Monday 13th August 2012 15:44 GMT Craigness
Pretty obvious really
"the content identification system Google has developed, and implemented, should make the filing of takedown notices redundant." Yet you don't know why youtube won't be affected by the new policy? It's not a pirate site because any pirated material (and some which isn't or is fair use) is handed to its rightful owner (or one of the big media companies with a sufficiently broadly defined content portfolio) who then has the choice of a takedown, content removal (eg. delete the audio track) or ad revenue - all automated. It doesn't work too well for the little guy, but it's not them who are forcing the change. Sites which violate the big guys get demoted, and youtube isn't one of those sites.
-
Monday 13th August 2012 15:54 GMT toadwarrior
So long as no other sites like youtube are punished then it's fine. But if punish other video sharing sites then that's a clear abuse.
The problem is that any video site is largely going to be hosting content that infringes copyright so how do you put one site above another fairly? So it would make sense just to ignore them rather than try to rate who is the worst at hosting copyright infringement.
-
Tuesday 14th August 2012 08:25 GMT Freshp2
Well let's help google make it light for themselves....... As for music just pay artist separate from the lable and publishish so they actually get paid, like ringtone money, in the form of adwords or something you guys are smart Work it out. As for all other content creators.........same biz, google needs to think outside web. If it's posted, uploaded and your advertising against it...... Spred the wealth, be that good Shepard and change the game... Again. Might take as long as trying to scan every book...... Tag folks work, and find a way to get those lil $25 a year royalty checks rolling in good faith......... Game changers change the game.
-
Tuesday 14th August 2012 09:01 GMT KroSha
There's a hole here. Copyright infringements for YouTube videos are processed by YouTube. They take the video offline if it's subject to a notice. Those notices don't go to Google Search. For that to happen, then there would have to be two notices, one to YouTube to get it removed and one to Google to get the search listing demoted. How many lawyers are going to do that if just one notices gets the result of having the clip pulled?
Or maybe Search would just pass the notices to YouTube for action?
-
Tuesday 14th August 2012 10:39 GMT Richard Gadsden
Isn't it obvious how YouTube doesn't get downgraded?
All the complaints to Google Search about YouTube get passed to YT, get processed, removing the video, and then when GS goes to look at the video, it's already gone, so their process determines that YT doesn't have any bad videos in the first place.