MPAA & RIAA Return To Blaming Google For Their Own Inability To Innovate

from the not-this-again dept

Wed, Sep 18th 2013 8:35am — Mike Masnick

Remember how back after SOPA ended, the MPAA's Chris Dodd kept going on and on about how he was going to take a more conciliatory and partnership-based approach to the tech industry (which he mistakenly seems to believe is defined by "Google")? Apparently that's out the window. Today both the MPAA and the RIAA have launched a one-two punch on Google, which is clearly designed to do one thing: get Google to start censoring its search results so that it no longer returns what people are looking for, but instead returns what the MPAA and RIAA think should be the right search results. The fundamental problem, of course, is that the MPAA and RIAA both seem to think that Google is supposed to deliver the answers they want the public to see, when everyone else recognizes Google's role is to return the results its users are searching for.

The "one-two punch" consists of the MPAA releasing a study that blames Google for piracy, followed by the RIAA testifying before Congress that everyone else is bending over backwards to help stop piracy, but Google is failing to do enough. Let's cover these in two separate posts. This one will focus on the MPAA's joke of a study which does everything it can to pin the blame for piracy on Google, but fails pretty spectacularly as you dig into the details. Amusingly, even the MPAA's own "talking points" on the study (which a friendly bird in Congress passed along) more or less admit that the study is incredibly weak.

The key number, which the MPAA does its best to bury is that search engines "influenced" only 20% of the times when consumers accessed infringing content. This is only slightly higher than the results of our own study, and it shows that the impact of search on infringement is fairly minimal. Of course, rather than focus on that, the MPAA trumpets a different number: claiming that "74% of consumers surveyed cited using a search engine as a discovery or navigation tool in their initial viewing sessions on sites with infringing content."

Note the careful choice of words: "discovery or navigation tool." This fits with our own findings (linked above), which found that a very large percentage of the traffic to sites commonly associated with infringement are people simply using Google instead of the address bar. That is, when we looked at the data, here were the top eight search terms that sent traffic from Google to The Pirate Bay:

pirate bay
the pirate bay
piratebay
thepiratebay
tpb
piratebay.org
pirates bay
thepiratebay.org

Those are unlikely to be people really "searching" for TPB. Rather, it's just the lazy way of using Google as a "navigation" tool. If that failed, it's highly likely that most of those people would simply try again by using the actual URL. In fact, studies have shown that tons of people use searches as a navigation tool, rather than as a discovery tool. So, it seems unlikely that forcing, say, Google to return something other than TPB when people search on "pirate bay" is going to prevent infringement. It just leads people to go directly to TPB, rather than using the "short cut" of typing something faster.

Also, the 74% number came from a "survey," and we know how reliable those are, or how they can be heavily influenced by the wording of the question. Hard to take that number as anything particularly enlightening even though it's the one the MPAA is so focused on.

In the talking points the MPAA is passing around, it claims "Search engines bear a huge responsibility for introducing people to infringing content." But that's ridiculous. People know there's infringing content out there. They're not magically discovering it because of search engines. And then there's this:

Take Google's algorithm change as an example -- they held this up last summer as a step that would have meaningful impact and unfortunately we see in the data here that it hasn't.

Um, duh? That, of course, cuts against what the MPAA is arguing elsewhere in this very same release: that Google can have a meaningful impact. Except now they're admitting that it hasn't had an impact even when it did exactly what the MPAA asked it to do. The point should be clear to pretty much everyone: changing the search algo to favor Hollywood's preferred sites doesn't stop infringement, because people who want to infringe will find a way to do so. It's not that the search engine magically turns people into infringers. The MPAA, not having gotten the results it wants, just wants to do more algo changing, not recognizing that the end result is going to be the same. There's a word that describes doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Update: Matt Schruers digs deeper into the report and finds out that, indeed, 37% of the "searches" are "navigational" meaning it was just someone typing in the name of the site they wanted rather than doing a search. It also points out that the methodology is that if someone accesses infringing content within 20 minutes of doing a search, that access is blamed on the search. Dodgy methodology at best.

The report, titled “Understanding the Role of Search in Online Piracy”, asserts that 19.2% of visits to infringing content were “influenced” by a search engine (which MPAA rounds up to 20%, not down, because Hollywood accounting).

What does “influenced” mean? It does not mean, apparently, that the user conducted a search and then clicked on a link presented in the search results. According to the study’s methodology, such an approach would be too “narrow,” thus necessitating a “hybrid” approach that includes any instance where the user visits an infringing site within 20 minutes after conducting potentially incriminating searches. Although the report itself makes no specific policy recommendations, MPAA personnel have complained [1], [2] to officials that search providers’ existing voluntary efforts are no replacement for government regulation.

Less prominently stated is that 37% of searches for infringing content involved a “navigational search.” “Navigational searches” is a term of art (or a euphemism) for typing a domain name into the search bar instead of the navigational bar of the browser. (Most Internet users have probably done this at one point or another, either by accident or out of laziness.) This means that the study’s 19.2% figure disguises the fact that more than a third of the searches that precede a user accessing infringing content via (e.g.) MegaUpload were searches where the us

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Filed Under: blame, liability, search engines, studies
Companies: google, mpaa, riaa

51 Comments

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Ninja (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 7:27am

I wonder who would they blame if Google did everything they want and it still didn't stop file sharing. I'll bet on Global Warming.
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silverscarcat (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 7:42am

Re:
They should blame the oil and gas companies for having gasoline (or petro) so damn high that people can't afford to buy their products.

Not to mention all the car companies that dismantled public transportation in the U.S.

Blame them first, if not for them, we'd have cheap, affordable transportation around the U.S. and could afford to go to the movies more often.
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Rabbit80 (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 7:55am

Re: Re:
Huh, in the UK we pay way more than you for petrol...

Current prices where I live are around �1.37/litre or over $10 per (us) gallon!!!
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Ninja (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 8:01am

Re: Re: Re:
Holy shit. But you do have public transportation right?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 8:42am

Worse than patent trolls.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 8:43am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
For a given value of transportation.
It's expensive, slow and usually late.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 8:48am

They just want to turn search engines into something along the lines of TV Guide "for the Internet". Once the search engines acquiesce, voluntarily or by governmental force, the search engine becomes irrelevant.
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out_of_the_blue, 18 Sep 2013 @ 8:50am

Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
In its default state, admittedly. But society doesn't work in a default state of nature, it must be policed for the common good. MPAA & RIAA quite reasonably (though self-serving) want it to protect their incomes, rather than having those diverted to grifters like Kim Dotcom of Megaupload/Mega, whom you defend -- while saying that you support copyright. And I agree that Google has some duty to police itself when manifestly used to facilitate crimes of both piracy and grifting.

Remember pirates: Google can rat you out to RIAA and MPAA!
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 8:50am

Ah, right, the MPAA. Who exaggerated piracy rates by 300%, got called out on it, admitted it, but continued to use the same rates. Completely trustworthy and totally not suspicious.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:04am

they have lost plain and simple. There's actually been a net increase in file sharing.

http://torrentfreak.com/432-million-pirates-share-9567-petabytes-a-month-130917/
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Violynne (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:13am

*Goes to Google.com

*Enters latest movie title, now longer in theaters but available on bluray.

*Sees list upon list of sites, not a single one of them legitimate.

*Gets fed up. Goes to wife's cable-connected TV. Sees title. Keels over at $9.99 "rental" fee which lasts 24 hours.

Yeah, Chris, if you're reading this: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG, YOU IDIOTIC MONKEY!
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S. T. Stone, 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:15am

Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
Google is facilitating crime.

Show me where Google explictly induces any given user to commit an act of copyright infringement.

We don�t hold AT&T liable when people use phones to commit crimes. We don�t hold Toyota liable when people use cars to commit crimes. Why should we hold Google liable when people use its 100% legal services to commit a crime?

Blame the users, not the technology.

Kim Dotcom of Megaupload/Mega, whom you defend

Correct me if I get this wrong, but hasn�t Techdirt only defended Dotcom�s right to due process? I�ve never seen anyone here defend Dotcom�s general business model/strategy, and as much as I loathe the arcane dark arts known as copyright law, even I wouldn�t defend that whackjob�s business model.

Then again, you do hate to see due process enforced, so�

Google has some duty to police itself when manifestly used to facilitate crimes of both piracy and grifting

How do you expect Google to �police� search engine results, YouTube uploads, et al when, as others (and myself) have pointed out before, it has no direct and exact knowledge of what links/uploads/etc. infringe upon someone�s copyright? How do you expect Google to pay for the expenses necessary to police every last minute of video uploads to YouTube or every last link that passes through its search engine or every encrypted message that flows through Gmail? (Okay in fairness the NSA has that last one covered already.)

Google relies on the copyright holders to come to them because the system should work that way. Until and unless you or someone else can come up with a foolproof, uncrackable, 100% reliable scheme to mark, identify, and prevent the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted content, stick with using the DMCA and get over yourself.
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Transmitte (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:22am

So Google is turning people into pirates by using them as a navigation tool?

So by their reasoning(highly insufficient as it is), any item used in an improper or "not designed for" use is the fault of the producer of said item?

Tell you what MPAA and RIAA, you keep throwing five year old temper tantrums like you have been and we as a discerning public will eventually deal with you accordingly.
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silverscarcat (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:25am

Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
Technically speaking, there's nothing wrong with Dotcom's business model of being a file storage locker. The way he had it set up was pretty good.

No one defends a storage locker in California if it's holding nuclear waste, but you wouldn't want every storage locker removed because of it. (Well, you might in this case)
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silverscarcat (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:27am

Re: Re: Re:
Damn, man...

No wonder bike thefts are so common across the pond.
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saulgoode (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:31am

"74% of consumers surveyed cited using a search engine as a discovery or navigation tool in their initial viewing sessions on sites with infringing content."
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DB (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:32am

If you read carefully, they are blaming Google for not giving their distributors free advertising. Actually they want better than free advertising -- they want Google to present authorized retailers as an "organic" search result, something you can't pay Google to do.

I'm reminded of the reason IBM put so much money into building the world's most powerful supercomputer: you can't buy advertising 'above the fold' of the New York Times. If you could, it would cost millions. Getting a headline listing that isn't obviously advertising is worth $$$$$.
That's what they want, at not cost.
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Michael, 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:35am

Re:
So Google is turning people into pirates by using them as a navigation tool?

I'm pretty sure it is concern about Google Glass creating a generation of people that end up needing an eye patch.
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Ruben, 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:39am

Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
Why are they going after google, then? Why not go after the actual pirate sites?

I guess that makes too much sense to actually consider.

If you search google for Pirate Bay, and you get Pirate Bay as the result, seems like it's working exactly as it should.
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Michael, 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:39am

Chris Dodd kept going on and on about how he was going to take a more conciliatory and partnership-based approach to the tech industry

I'm pretty sure that if the MPAA really wanted a "more conciliatory and partnership-based approach", they would need to hire someone that the tech industry actually had a little respect for.
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saulgoode (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:40am

Lost in submission:
For me the lie in this statistic is that not all visits to "sites with infringing content" are for the purpose of accessing that content. By the MPAA's own numbers, 30% of The Pirate Bay's torrents point to non-infringing works; and TPB is the self-proclaimed poster child of online piracy. Visitors might also be interested in a particular movie's popularity (even Netflix does this), or in reading reviews, or engaging in academic research on internet usage.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:41am

They're just pointing people where they want to go. Who cares if that place violates other people's rights or now, right, Mike?
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Atkray (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 9:54am

Re:
I'm glad you finally understand. If you ask for directions to drive into a lake it isn't my responsibility when you drown.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:03am

Re:
They would just move the goalposts. True, Google did X and Y that we asked for, but it did not do Z! That is the reason it did not stop file sharing! (Even though they had never asked for Z before; they would pretend they did, or argue that Google should guess they also wanted Z.)
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jupiterkansas (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:17am

Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
When you type "pirate bay" into Google, the only links that should come up are iTunes Store and Amazon. That will fix Google.
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crade (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:20am

Re:
Exactly. Heaven forbid someone provide a service that people actually find useful in this day and age.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:25am

Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
You're really wasting your time pointing out blue's idiocy. Better to just call him an idiot and move on, or even better - ignore him all together.

His tune will never change: Google is evil, MAFIAA is god, and TechDirt isn't worth reading, even though he reads it every day and has for years.

His only defense is he thinks he's better than all of us.
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Zakida Paul (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:27am

"Google is facilitating crime."

What a load of bollocks. You may as well claim Ford is facilitating drink driving, or that gun manufacturers are facilitating murder. Where would it end?

Then again, I would expect nothing less from that particular commenter.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:28am

Good thing these acronym groups haven't learned about bookmarks yet. Imagine, go some where and not use a search engine everytime. Who woulda thought such could be? /s
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Zakida Paul (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:28am

Re: Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
"even though he reads it every day and has for years. "

Didn't he once admit that he never reads the articles or was that another troll/idiot?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:30am

Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
"it must be policed for the common good."

It is. The MPAA & RIAA do not get to define "common good" as they are uncommon across the populace. Regular users, you know "common people", get to define it.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:33am

no one in their right mind would search for TPB. they would already have the site in their favorites list! if there were no search engines, how would anyone find anything on the internet? does the entertainment industries think that nothing other than illegal items are searched for? everyone knows exactly what needs to be done, but POLITICIANS HAVEN'T GOT THE GUTS TO DO IT! GET THE INDUSTRIES TO SHAPE UP OR SHIP OUT WOULD DO THE ONLY THINGS THAT ARE NEEDED! while politicians keep doing as much as they can to keep what they should do from being done, there will never be any sensible solution!
wake up Congress for God's sake! stop the entertainment industries from continuously delaying progress. if you dont, the Internet will cease to be! it's getting closer to that every time you do something else to 'help' them. and remember, once it's gone, it's gone!!
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jupiterkansas (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:45am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
The evidence is to the contrary, but if Google is mentioned, expect his canned response: Google is evil in every way.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:50am

Re: Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
The Pirate Bay is illegal in most countries. Why shouldn't something along those lines happen?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:52am

Re:
A more honest interpretation is that MPAA wants search engines to act like tobacco companies: If you illegalize smoking in public, recruitment will become impossible.

It is a very long term strategy where the next generation hopefully will not come into contact with the bad things. Unfortunately it doesn't take mere years to see such an effect. It is more like 2-3 decades needed, if it will ever cause an improvement when so many workarounds exist!

Slamming only Google is very crude. Sure, it is the primary search engine on the net. However, there are other ways to learn about infringement networks. Unless they start squashing communication with mention of illegal content - which likely will take breaking encryption in the future btw. - it is pretty near impossible to stop what I believe is the primary recruitment methods.
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Jay (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 10:58am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
So how is that going to stop infringement?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 11:06am

I wonder if the MPAA, realizes that Microsofts forced gold membership, to use Netflix, Promotes movie Piracy.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 11:21am

Re:
Of course drunk driving is facilitated by car manufacturers and gun murders are facilitated by gun manufacturers. The only reason they are not getting their ass kicked is because of international competition and a certain lobbying organisation. Google does not have that protection yet...
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gorehound (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 11:57am

Never buying a thing from the MAFIAA nor from any of the sold-out Artists.

I Buy & I Support Local & Indie Non-MAFIAA Art !
Let the Dinosaurs finally go extinct.We hated them in 1976 and we still hate them now.
Punks Not Dead !
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Ruben, 18 Sep 2013 @ 12:50pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
Why don't they just block TPB? Why are they going after google?
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Ruben, 18 Sep 2013 @ 12:56pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
Further, there's nothing illegal about pirate bay. Its users may commit infringement when they use the site depending on where they live. The site itself hosts nothing but pointers to files.
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John Fenderson (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 12:59pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
In most countries? Really? I think some evidence is required for that.

Regardless, even if TBP was illegal in all countries, it's a mistake on every level to falsify search results because of that. Instead, go after the entity that is actually (hypothetically) illegal: the pirate bay.

Why are you so keen on punishing legal businesses for the (hypothetical) illegal acts of other, unrelated businesses?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2013 @ 1:14pm

Your update has been trucated
"... were searches where the us" I'm sure there must be more to that sentence.
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David Cortright (profile), 18 Sep 2013 @ 5:17pm

Insanity quote
Is actually from Narcotics Anonymous, not Einstein
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Misattributed
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mhab, 18 Sep 2013 @ 7:29pm

Re: Re: Plain and simple for ya, Pirate Mike: Google is facilitating crime.
While they're at it they should blame Bit Torrent! Bit torrent is another perfectly legal tool that is used by pirates.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2013 @ 2:10am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
AHAHAHAHAHA

I honestly LOVE IT every time a British person complains about public transport. Because where I live it's more expensive, a lot slower, and always alate. A train trip that should take about 3 hours now takes 8. If it's not too hot.

We don't even have bus schedules, or those tickers that say "time 'til next bus". Until a couple of years ago not even the metro had those. Now only about half the stations do. Stations that have been 70% completed 24 years ago opened last year. And this is in the capital city.

I've been to the UK. I wish he had your public transport.
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Abara, 19 Sep 2013 @ 6:32am

Url searching
With firefox when I type something that doesn't link to a direct sitepage I get automatically redirected to the google search. If I type " thepiratebay " in the url bar i find myself on thepiratebay.com . But if i put a space between one of the terms like the pirate bay I'm in google search so their "research" could be even less accurate than what you said.
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John Fenderson (profile), 19 Sep 2013 @ 9:27am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
One of the cities I live in has public transport that is regularly cited as being among the best in the US.

And it sucks. Expensive, slow, and with limited coverage. Whatever the faults of the UK systems, visitors from the UK to here quite often comment about how much better theirs is compared to ours.
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Hephaestus (profile), 19 Sep 2013 @ 4:47pm

I know what you mean, hephaestusproject.com is far easier to find via google than type in the URL bar.
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AnonCow, 20 Sep 2013 @ 9:20am

Why not go to the source of the problem? The speaker manufacturers. Without them, there would be no music or movie piracy.
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Sammy Waid, 26 Sep 2013 @ 11:59am

Seriously, enough is enough. It's time for Google to grow another pair and start standing up to these people. They need to start their own coalition of like-minded businesses and start doing like the MPAA does: buying off politicians to see things their way. Haven't they learned yet that there is no appeasing these people, that the more you capitulate to them the more demands they will make? Just ask Rapidshare how well that's worked out for them.
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