Anti-Piracy Agent Says Full Site Blocking Only Makes His Job Harder
from the total-failures dept
We've pointed out for years that the whac-a-mole game of entertainment industry organizations trying to take down entire websites was a really dumb idea. Not only would it create significant collateral damage for legitimate sites, but it makes things even worse in terms of actually preventing access to content. That's because once the content is out there, it's out there. And as you shut down big sites, you pretty much guarantee that the same content will be just as widely available, but in a more distributed manner, making it that much harder for those focusing on takedowns to be effective. It appears that this is exactly what's happening. Torrentfreak recently pointed out attention to an article by James Brandes, who works for an anti-piracy company, but who says that site takedowns are actually making his job a lot harder.This shouldn't be surprising. Pretty much anyone who has any experience with this kind of thing could have predicted exactly that. And yet, the recording and movie industries keep pushing for site blocking in the completely ridiculous belief that it will actually do something useful.So is this wack-a-mole policy working? No. It’s plainly evident that every single time a site is blocked at the ISP level, new URLs take their place. This has further ramifications for content owners and their agents.
As an anti-piracy agent, I can report that this is making life more difficult particularly with regards to DMCA submissions to Google. But why? During an anti-piracy project, I send Notices to Google to remove infringing results that appear via their search engine. In the past, this may have included results for The Pirate Bay, KickAssTorrents, & H33T. The major problem now is that whilst infringing search results for the aforementioned torrent sites have been removed by Google, new infringing search results appear constantly as a consequence of these sites being forced to use proxies & alternative URLs. Predictably, this creates far more work for content owners (particularly for small independent labels who are not members of the BPI) and their agents. For example, I’d estimate that well over 5 million additional search results have been removed from Google as a result of sites using alternative URLs. Just check the following Google Transparency for piratebayalternative and you’ll see why I’ve reached this conclusion! So it’s certainly fair to say that the blocking policy is perhaps backfiring badly.
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Filed Under: copyright, james brandes, site takedowns, whac-a-mole
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Paying those trying to deal with the problem
Has anybody else worked in a corporate environment? Has anybody who has worked in such an environment notice how contracts for things like "anti-piracy" (I'm thinking independent verification and validation, auditing, compliance, PCI DSS compliance) tend to go to businesses with some kind of connection to the original corporation?
Like an aerospace company, required by DoD to have someone else do IV&V on a big rocket or satellite or whatever, the contract goes to a smallish company that just happens to employ someone from the CEO's family.
Yes, that's right, I, Edward Teach, think that "anti-piracy companies" are a way to siphon money out of a big company, and into an insider's family.
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They cost us money, but we can't prove it, because they don't, so it's a moral issue which costs us money though it doesn't and it doesn't matter because it's a moral issue.
Lost revenues.
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Oooh, a red circle on top of the stove....OWWWWWWW that hurts. Ooooh, a red circle.......OWWWWWW. Oooh, a red circle..
and so on and so forth. Maybe it's time to try something different?
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Something Different
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Somebody tell me how a search result has been twisted into something that infringes on copyright.
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AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up same place!
http://techdirt.com/
If Mike supports copyright, why are the pirates here? They take him same as I do: PRO-PIRACY!
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Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
b) How do you keep a monopoly right if you can't stop the source from spreading freely?
Here block the link.
The Pirate Bay
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Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
And this anti-piracy guy makes it very clear that site blocking is a waste of time. So this comment of yours really proves your point in stating that it continues maintaining the RIGHTS of creators expressed in copyright when this anti-piracy guy has stated that site blocking is a waste of time. You must think we are dumb to fall for your BS as per usual. lol
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Re: Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
This attempt at pirate propaganda is laughably transparent and yet another epic fail.
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Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
So, if its misinformation, that would mean that they lie. Meaning that nothing that Big Media says (wait a second...you just called them Big Media...when did you start doing that?) can be trusted...not that they were trustworthy to begin with.
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Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
Yeah right, the RIAA and it's ilk are running a disinformation campaign to sneak up on those nasty 14-year-old pirates who want the latest copy of Bieber's Album.
The point of the story is that their efforts to date aren't "maintaining the RIGHTS of creators expressed in copyright",/I>. In fact it's doing exactly the opposite.
They're going after the tool, not the offender. It's as silly as blaming guns for violence instead of the person using the gun.
You can always make another tool.
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Re: Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
It can be fashioned into a gun and so those who distribute it or trade in it are profiting from the potential violence of the user of the potential gun that the metal represents.
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Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
And if blocking entire sites is demonstrably making 'maintaining the rights of creators' more difficult, why exactly do you think it's a good tactic again?
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Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
b) Now blocking sites are some sort of corpate expressionist art piece?!
Also I'm a pirate and I am amused by site blocking. I think you are confusing "people with legitimate concerns of breaking the internet" with "Pirates that laugh at really stupid attempts to stop them as they update a link and get back to business in less time it took you to read this sentence"
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Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
Of course, this simple logic will never occur to OotB.
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Re: AND so why are you pirates complaining about site-blocking?!
You're assuming any dis-info put out by big media could ever cover up the fact they're losing. Think again.
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> to his employer and acts like a Trojan horse.
Yeah, 'cause that's the more likely scenario here.
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Cut one off
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File sharing really started hitting it's stride with Napster. When Napster was put out of business, the courts gave new file sharing sites a road map of what not to do to be legal. Don't have a centralized setup.
So wack-a-mole hit with Kaaza, DC, Edonkey, Limewire, and AudioGalaxy, to mention a few. From one site to deal with to a bunch of them.
When they went after those, Torrents came on the scene and the proliferation expanded by magnitudes. Every step of the way has done nothing but increase file sharing sites.
Now they don't even have to setup a new site, just a new domain and linking. In addition wack-a-mole is still going strong.
There's a way to stop pretty much all of it but the entertainment industry isn't going to want to do that. Give the customer what he wants at the deal he wants, and no one needs go to a pirate site. The other way would be to just sell licenses to the sites and be done with it. Most of these sites would sell their left nut to have that.
Yet none of this is being done. So good luck changing the definition of insanity.
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You know what other kind of blocking is stupid? You trying to block me. I can post whenever I want.
Why are you trying so desperately, yet in vain, to censor me?
Don't worry. I'm sure there's a couple of people who believe it's not because you're scared of me.
Bawk. Cluck. Bawk.
I fucking own you and you know it. You're too scared to discuss things on the merits with me. I love it!
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Two words for you, moron: SPAM FILTER.
You spam, your message gets held in moderation. That fucking simple.
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obvious
They know the solutions to the problem, they know the system has to change but they refuse to do so, as long as they refuse to change they lose money supposedly,or lose the ability to monetize the systems everyone is using.
Damn i would pay to have legalized torrenting, not much mind you, but if they get all of the billions of people who torrent and encourage a few billion more to use the easiest system in the world, and supply very high quality files they could be making a killing.
Damn i would pay 9.99 a month for access to everything i have access to free of charge now if i was safe in the knowledge that it would not change or be closed down.
So they could be making hundreds of billions a year if the used the torrenting system to share their content, with one pc to upload files it would cost them nothing to embrace the system.Oh sorry it would cost them a lot of money to setup a payment system, maybe a few hundred dollars at most
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Excuse me site blocker afficionada, I make my living engaging in the pointless activity of getting google to remove links to sites that may or may not contain copyright infringing material. I am able to make my living at this pointless activity because certain people against all evidence believe that search engines returning results that include these sites cost them money in the form of lost potential revenue.
Unfortunately your pointless activity based on the same false belief is hindering my pointless activity.
Although I have to say that us both being able to make a living at an utterly pointless activity places us alongside the greats of DRM who similarly make a lot of money off their pointless activity which is driven by the fear of people distributing digital files in a copyright infringing way and although their solutions never actually stop that happening these idiots who pay us all have yet to figure out that we are the ones actually costing them real money.
As long as we keep their minds focused on the fictional money that potential lost revenues represent, we should be able to keep this going for years.
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oh dear, the poor anti-piracy agent is having to work a tiny bit harder, BOO FUCKING HOO..
Who cares ??? I guess if you killed everyone in New York (or just told everyone to leave), the NYPD's job would be far easier too
You seem to want us to believe that if a site with illegal content is shut down there are many others just waiting for when that happens who will instantly start another site and host that info !!.
Does NOT HAPPEN or happens very rarely, it's a wack a mole game they are actually WINNING.
Sure, if you ignore all crimes, you make the polices job easier, you don't stop the crimes, if a site is shut down, that might indicate that if you start hosting that material YOU will be shut down.
Sooner or later you kill all the moles, or most of them, leaving only the severely brain damaged ones remaining, ripe for the whacking.
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On the other hand, you have a horrible definition of winning. But what else would we expect from a jackass who consistently manhandles the English language?
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So Kickass torrents, Piratebay and so many more that they have wacked are now nowhere to be seen?
You are the severely brain damaged one who has no idea what they are talking about.
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how did that go in the case of kat.ph / kickass.to?
guess what? if you type kat.ph into your browser, you are directed right to kickass.to
Gotta love technology. Proving idiots wrong is such childs play.
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Good.
Being in the anti-piracy business will never be easy and those who help run the show will never allow it to be easy. And if you're whining about it then I think it's time to pack up shop.
Understand though that no quarter will be given should the Old Roger get it's claws on ya. Cheers.
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