Google Transparency report
ReDave
Posts: 815
Google published today its latest Transparency Report (http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/transparency-for-copyright-removals-in.html). The big news is that copyright holders have been asking Google to remove links to copyright infringing content.
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Comments
It sometimes get frustrating with the searches that bring up warez sites. It is not just Poser/Daz Studio stuff. I was searching for Photoshop tutorials and saw some stuff for pirated version. I do not want to pirate Photoshop but to learn how to use the software I bought.
True! And thinking more on this, those enormous "sharing" sites that rely on Google for internal search will have a bit of a problem! ;)
Address to ask Google to remove a link: http://support.google.com/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1114905&page=ts.cs
Seeing that some companies pay to be put on the top of the List...
I wonder...
The thing is why don't they just ban those evil sites from making money through the click system which they fund anyway. I wonder how long this will last
Till no one any longer buys the excuses that you can't keep track of it all...
I'm against pirating but also against eroding internet freedom and attacking the wrong things. For example so mad that megaupload closed, i lost my freebies that I had put there that were from my old computer. :( I had a paid account, too. The people who shut that down to protect HOLLYWOOD showed that they only serve the rich folks and stole from all the legitmate users. No protection for us, its nothing but a joke.
And nothing wrong with search sites. The problem is the people who upload and download content they shouldn't.. Not the sites that share links. That is my opinion. 'm sure others will disagree with me, but as I watch more and more liberties, rights, and freedoms disintegrate and vanish, it means a lot to me to retain that personal freedom.
I second that. It's not the correct way to ban the sites. If it is illegal the only way to stop this is to catch the responsible people otherwise they will open the same thing on a different place.
Please do not let this degenerate into a poltical discussion. Thankyou
Redacted
How? Those sites are hosted outside the reach of the legal system. The ones that were within reach felt the impact of SOPA.
But still the company that pay those sites for clicking on the webpage are not out of reach! they are in full view, the SOPA still doesn't stop the payments to the bad sites. If they did that they won't have to bust down any doors, if there's no money there's no reason to put up those sites. Man I hate tiptoeing around and not being able to say the truth.
As someone with a degree in programming, but I decided to go with computer tech instead. I've never understood software piracy. No money to buy, wait until you do. I have no problem with storage sites. Someone out there will find a way to misuse such sites. Unfortunately, when they are gone after by governments, both the good people and bad people using storage sites are shut down. It should be only the bad guys. I don't have a solution, sorry.
What about personal responsibility on the sites owners? megaupload allowed the misuse of their system, so they have themselves to blame, not the ones shutting them down. While i feel for those that lost files when sites got closed, if you were blind to what was uploaded and stored on those sites yet still used them for your legit uses, then you have yourself to blame.
I live for the day I can do a google search and not get an illegal torrent link, but it probably won't happen in my lifetime, money talks. Look at Youtube (owned by google) they host tons of illegally uploaded material and do little to stop it. I don't know how any 3D developer can continue doing what they do when most, if not all of their work is hosted on the internet illegally somewhere.
I personally think it would be impossible for sites to be aware of everything. People rename things as nonsense, how would you know what it is without opening it? and to do that you'd have to download it too, right? and then you'd be a bad guy too.
i don't know what the solution is. I think the war against piracy though has had a negative effect on normal user's freedoms. You know, we used to be allowed to copy a cassette tape or other kinds of data, for back up and archive purpose, it was a legal right. Now there's all these "protected" dvds and cds that don't want us to back up or protect our data, or sometimes even transfer to a mp4 player, or onto our computer or ipad or other digital device.
You know what's interesting? You know that Korean song Gangnam style? By Psy? Do you know that he allowed that song to go on Youtube? And most of the money he makes from it is from its fame and advertisments and so on, and not from the actual song. Letting that song get out was the best thing ever.
Now if i'm recording a video, but there's a song playing in a car that drives by, that song shouldn't be in my video and I think, if i understand correctly, that I can't use it. It just seems to me that my freedoms of reasonable use of media are eroding.
And going after hosting sites isn't a legitimate way. It makes the govt or who ever does the persecution into equally bad guys, by stealing from the regular folks. And no, I don't buy the line that we should have known. I have used that site for years because it was one of the few uploading sites that was accessible from EVERY COUNTRY I have lived in (and I travel and live abroad a LOT). it was my reliable source. Place like China block many many sites, Korea blocked some too.... it file locker didn't work in Taiwan until last year.
Just saying that in my opinion, hollywood money talks over the rights of normal people. I don't buy anymore US music. Only Asian music... and British DVDS. i'm sick of the mess of eroding freedom brought about by Hollywood... :(
What about personal responsibility on the sites owners? megaupload allowed the misuse of their system, so they have themselves to blame, not the ones shutting them down. While i feel for those that lost files when sites got closed, if you were blind to what was uploaded and stored on those sites yet still used them for your legit uses, then you have yourself to blame.
I live for the day I can do a google search and not get an illegal torrent link, but it probably won't happen in my lifetime, money talks. Look at Youtube (owned by google) they host tons of illegally uploaded material and do little to stop it. I don't know how any 3D developer can continue doing what they do when most, if not all of their work is hosted on the internet illegally somewhere.
Site owners are responsible I feel.
But my post was more about good guys getting caught up and finding their legal files are gone. I don't know of any free web host that allows their accounts to be used as a download only storage site. If there were, and they were proactive on keeping out illegal content, that would be good. I do kmnow of a freebie web host, good people, but a site has to be something besides a storage site as they delete storage sites due to concerns over warez.
As for youtube, there is alot of home made videos, and evidently it is allowed in some instances. I've seen the 'not an attempt to take over copyright' well, something like that. I have an account there, but I haven't made any videos, just have playlists. Youtube does delete some of the content. Some items you can play it after a search, but not play it linked in a youtube playlist due to requests by the copyright holders.
The site I host my domain on, they check file types. Renaming them doesn't work. But their terms of service don't allow storage sites, but they do allow sites to have text content with downloadable files. I have one site with over one thousand maps I made for an old paper and pencil game I used to run. No problems for me with that.
I had all my freebies I'd made for 3d as well as some (albeit rather awful) music I made with software from my old computer (whichh is long gone and died when I was in Korea).
Since megaupload allowed password storage and I paid an account, they even said they were a good place for backing up things, that is why I used them. if I passworded them and they were in a random jumbled name that no one could understand, and my files were named only "mine" or soemthing like that so no one could know.. i mean, grrr. I may never get over it.
And a tech friend is who recommended me to use the site.... several years ago, and it worked for me, that's why I kept using it. And in the last couple years, used it to share my 3D freebies. :(
There should be ways of checking files to see if they are identical. Downloads for Open Source sites like the Apache Foundation use various methods so that you can check that the files have not been altered (which could mean a virus). This can probably be done without downloading anything. I'm not 100% sure as it's not an area I've gone into at the moment but it seems like it should be possible.
The main problem though is that sites will quickly re-invent themselves somewhere else. There are always going to be "grey areas" of the internet - countries that don't have the resources to police sites*, less honest ones that are happy to make money that way - and all beyond regular jurisdictions.
*This is not always possible even in well-resourced countries as it takes a huge amount person-hours.
No prosecution has yet been completed, nor any verdict returned, as far as I am aware so please don't assert that a site "did" such-and-such. The allegation, however, is that Megaupload did not have a working take-down procedure, and that is why the site was closed.
It is good general advice that you should never rely on a single copy of a file - a backup, by definition, is a second copy to save you if the first is deleted or damaged.
The funny thing is that intellectual property infringements are only 1% of the removal requests: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government/ considering how Youtube is, I find that totally hilarious. Whoops, unsubstantiated allegation.
For the other sites, that require an up-front payment to download "their" wares just report them to the legal system. We'll beat these guys someday.
@BelovedDahlia: your files still exist, the servers have been seized, but they haven't been formatted or anything like that, since they are evidence. I hear good things about Dropbox, but likewise there is no guarantee that a significant proportion of users do, ah, allegation-worthy stuff. As Richard said, you should keep two copies of the most important things.