UK Government Pressuring Search Engines To Censor Results In Favor Of Copyright Industries
from the backroom-deals dept
One of the most insidious aspects of recent Internet policy-making is that much of it is taking place behind closed doors, with little or no consultation -- think of SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and TPP. But there's another dangerous trend: the rise of "informal" agreements between the copyright industries and Internet service providers.
With the implicit threat that tough legislation will be brought in if voluntary agreements aren't drawn up promptly enough, governments are using this technique to avoid even the minimal scrutiny that consultations on proposed new laws would permit. This allows all kinds of bad ideas to be forced through without any evidence that they will help and without the chance for those affected to present their viewpoints.
James Firth has a disturbing post about a proposed "voluntary" scheme involving search engines in the UK:
We know laws such as the UK's Digital Economy Act and America's SOPA/PIPA met incredible resistance from the tech industry and internet users, and readers of this blog and Open Rights Group supporters are already aware the UK government has switched tack from legislating to encouraging agreements directly between service providers and copyright owners.
What is being proposed is out-and-out censorship and doctoring of search engine results through the use of blacklists and whitelists:
What we didn't know until now is the extent that the UK government and in particular Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and the Creative Industries, is pressurising search engines to police search results in a way that goes well beyond notice and take-down.
I'm told a consortium of search engines at a meeting on Tuesday were accused of a "retrograde step" after failing to make progress on a proposal by music rights holders for a system to promote "good" music resellers and demote "bad" in the search rankings.The blacklist is of websites accused of infringement. These sites will never appear in search results. That's the whole site, not just the pages from the site with infringing content. And this is not a court process, it's a notification system allowing studios to tell search engines directly who the bad guys are.
That is, absolute power over search engines' results in these areas would be handed to industries that hardly have a good track record for adopting a proportionate approach to tackling unauthorized downloads. In particular, they are unlikely to lose much sleep over all the legitimate content that will become invisible when sites of borderline legality are removed from search engines' results "just to be on the safe side." And there are no indications that there would be any oversight as to who goes on the lists, or any right of appeal -- making it a purely extra-judicial punishment.
A white-list of "approved" online music and film services will be artificially promoted for music/film oriented searches.
The good news is that the search engines seem to be resisting this move -- for the moment. As Firth writes:
I'm told that whilst search engine providers are both keen to strictly abide by all national laws and also willing to work with content owners to provide easy-to-use notice and take-down systems (under the EU E-Commerce Directive and US DMCA), they are "drawing the line" at doctoring search results to suit one relatively small group of economic interests.
The whitelist is anyway problematic, since it might be seen as collusion in anti-competitive behavior, and incur the wrath of the European Commission. Worryingly, one other suggestion from the copyright industries seems to be more acceptable: cutting off the funding of sites in the same way that SOPA proposed.
On funding a meeting was held last Wednesday at the Department for Media, Culture and Sport between rights holders, and advertisers and payment service providers.
But even that seems an extremely dangerous step to take because it raises important questions about who will draw up such a blacklist, on what criteria, and how will those placed on it be able to appeal.
I'm told in that meeting a broad consensus was reached to create a blacklist of websites where no advertiser would be allowed to advertise or face expulsion from industry bodies such as the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
That exposes one of the key problems with these "voluntary" agreements: those pushing for them have no interest in striking a balance, or in building in safeguards for those most affected -- it's all about getting a quick-and-dirty fix and to hell with the consequences. That's why legislation, with full consultation from all parties, is a far better way of proceeding. After all, it's why we have a legislative process with checks and balances in the first place -- to craft a solution that is both workable and fair. The new fashion for backroom agreements among a small group of unelected insiders is nothing less than an attack on that process, and hence on democracy itself.
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Filed Under: censorship, copyright, filtering, pressure, search results, uk
Companies: google, mpaa, riaa
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This hopeless cliché has about as much rhetorical force as a Daily Mail reader complaining that the issue du jour is "political correctness gone mad".
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Oops! Double negative. Not intentional. =]
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Someday, they'll either give in and embrace sane business models, or go bankrupt. Until then, we'll just have to accept the piracy they create.
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Yadda yadda who cares if you are flayed alive and cooked the fact is someone downloaded a mp3 somewhere.
Jabber jabber since someone has infringed at some point some unjustified law that was approved without the consent of those ruled, it is just fair that we make up any rules for punishing anyone that isn't even remotely linked to them.
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Yes it is. It's helping to protect the assault on freedom, liberty & privacy coming from the major entertainment lobby. And before you misconstrue that, I'm not talking about "freedom to pirate."
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Why would I want to spend my time, energy and money fighting against something I don't really care about? Piracy is not MY problem. If the rights holders want to waste their resources fighting against piracy, I say have at it.
I have issues with the rights holders trying to use tax payer money in this fight. I have issues when this fight intrudes on my privacy. I have issues when this fight results in censorship. I have issues when this fight threatens the open internet and the free exchange of information. And I have issues when this fight results in collateral damage of innocent parties.
Those are the things I will fight against.
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If everyone who supports the RIAA would fight FOR our rights you could make some progress toward moving censorship off of the web. Fighting against those who are fighting against censorship isn't accomplishing ANYTHING.
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A simple solution?
Think about the sh*tstorm that would be created if you searched for a song or movie, and at the top of the result set it stated in nice, big, bold text "The U.K. Government, in cooperation with the MPAA and/or RIAA, have limited us to showing you the following results. There are other sites that asre pertinent to your query, but we are not allowed to show them to you."
I seem to think that would draw a lot of attention to the issue.
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websites accused of infringement.
websites accused of infringement.
websites accused of infringement.
No court order, no notification to the site, and no appeals process means no removal. Is it so much to ask for a little due process?
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/s
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MY GAWD! That explains everything!
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"We petition Google to remove all listings to any content owned by the following companies ... for the period of one week. Allowing only those links explicitly provided in advance by the content owners to appear in search terms. Proof of ownership required."
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I warned you that you'd have been happier with the final negotiated version of SOPA then you will be with these agreements. The hysterics surrounding SOPA changed the battlefield forever. You already saw the six strikes policy put in place. You will see other industry agreements with content providers as companies like Google and Facebook expand their own content businesses. ICANN and other US internet ecosystem players will be increasing open to accommodate enforcement and voluntary action. Payment providers are already largely on-board. Just ask RapidGator who went out of business after PayPal cut them off. Foreign aid and will be leveraged against compliance and enforcement. And this is all largely a result of the anarchy over the SOPA debate. No putting that genie back in the bottle. So enjoy the fallout.
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I think you may be forgetting that when the DMCA passed there was a dramatic upswing in the number of 'voluntary' agreements that were put in place afterward. The fact that SOPA's indemnification for ecosystem players acting as Big Content lapdogs wasn't made law is the reason there won't be a dramatic upswing in these kinds of agreements and it's the reason that if such agreements are put in place there is actually a chance they will be struck down in court as opposed to absolutely no chance what-so-ever under SOPA.
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Like agreements blocking/filtering spam, malware, phishing, child porn, etc. have been struck down? Watch what happens when throttling takes place under the six strikes agreement. These companies have the right, if not duty to manage their networks. You are utterly delusional to believe a court will rule otherwise.
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So what will you rail about, other than you don't like it? Congress washes its hands in the Holy Water because it is a lawful commercial agreement and can even decry it if they think it will get them votes. But don't expect a legislative response.
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There are already peer-to-peer search engines and they will only become more powerful as people look to get around censorship. So what will these deals do? They will kill off any search engine who agrees to them.
I fear it is you my friend who is trying to put the genie back in the bottle. The world has had a taste of what it is like to have instant access to information. Try as you like to stop it people will find a way. The only way to stop the spread of information now is to bring down the entire system.
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Fuck Off
Hows that ?
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Re: Fuck Off
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Do you ever stop being a piracy apologist?
Do you think the current system is balanced, where the pirates and people who use content without permission are giving an equal stand with those who produce it or pay for the right to use it? Where is the balance there?
Sorry Glyn, but you are becoming more and more transparent by the day. Do you run a pirate site by chance?
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So what is the point of DRM then? It does not slow a pirate down AT ALL. Instead it makes it so that the bluray I BOUGHT will not play in my computer. Oh, and netflix also will not work on Linux BECAUSE OF DRM. So someone who tries to follow the law and consume content legally gets beat to death with this damn DRM while the pirates kick back and enjoy life.
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Ah, I see that you're thinking of "balance" in terms of copyright owners vs pirates. We're talking here about balance in terms of copyright owners vs the general public.
I will not accept having copyright owners damage me, a nonpirate, in their quest to stem piracy.
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Piracy
Well, there is indeed a problem with piracy, and the IMB is fighting against it: http://www.icc-ccs.org/piracy-reporting-centre
However, if any fucking asshole comes along and compares illegal copying to a crime which every year takes dozens of lifes, then this is plain disrepspectful to the victims.
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