Someone Please Tell Congress That 'Free' Is Not Illegal & Not To Lie About Bogus Search Results
from the they-don't-seem-to-know-that dept
We already wrote about how much of Thursday's House Judiciary Committee hearings seemed to focus on the ridiculous and dangerous concept of "notice and staydown," but that was hardly the only ridiculousness on display at the hearing about the DMCA's notice and takedown policy / internet safe harbors. If you've never watched a bunch of technologically clueless self-important politicians think they know better than actual engineers how to create a search engine, well, go take a look. During the Q&A, Reps. Judy Chu and Tom Marino spent a bunch of time complaining that when they did searches for the names of movies, plus the word "free," that Google sent them to links for (you guessed it) free (though unauthorized) options to watch those movies.Chu -- who has become the MPAA's favorite person to feed bogus questions to (though sometimes they forget that they've already given the same questions to someone else) -- pointed out that she wanted to test out Google by typing "watch," plus the name of popular movies, specifically 12 Years a Slave and Frozen, and that among the autocomplete options, "watch 12 years a slave free" and "watch frozen free" popped up. To her, this was proof positive that Google is aiding infringement. She later is clearly reading off of notes she doesn't understand, and makes claims about how Google's algorithm works concerning demoting sites that get lots of takedowns that are simply not accurate, as she presents her own theories on how Google's algorithm should work. Because I'm sure she's programmed lots of search engines.
A little while later, Rep. Marino picks up on this thread (including a laughable claim in which he notes he wants less federal government, but on this issue, he wants more federal government). He directly asks the Google representative on the panel, Katherine Oyama, why can't Google not return any results if someone searches on a movie name, plus "free." Oyama quickly points out that "we can't strike the word 'free' from search, because there's a lot of legitimate, great content that is free." Marino immediately follows up by arguing that if someone searches for "free," that's obviously a problem and "there's gotta be a process... where that can be flagged." And then, bizarrely, he mentions that his two teenage kids are writing software programs and shakes his head as if he can't believe what a world we live in which people write software. And yet he thinks he can better explain to Google how its algorithm should operate.
In a blog post about the hearing, Matt Schruers notes that it's rather worrisome that elected officials are legitimately suggesting that "free" is somehow bad and should be censored:
One thing I didn’t anticipate was today’s fixation on the word “free” in search results. It is odd that in the United States the word “free” should be so stigmatized, but several members of Congress took issue with search results that contain the word “free,” apparently with the aim that such results should be suppressed.That's an important point. You can also point out that if people are doing a search on a movie name and "free," they're probably not that interested in paying. But, the much more important point -- which Oyama tried to point out to both Chu and Marino (and which they both ignored) is that almost no one actually does the searches that has the two of them so upset. I figured I'd check. Here's the Google Trends report for the terms "12 years a slave" "watch 12 years a slave" and "watch 12 years a slave free." The yellow line is the name of the movie. The blue is "watch 12 years a slave" and the red line that barely gets off the bottom is "watch 12 years a slave free." You'll note, almost all of the searches are for the name of the movie. Very, very, very few searches are done with the "watch" opening. And significantly fewer are done with "free" after. In other words, no one is doing the searches that has Chu and Marino so worked up.
Of course, every use of the word “free” is not unlawful, even in relation to content. Indeed, there is a considerable amount of free content online (including this site). Some artists give free content away for various legitimate reasons, such as promotional samples. “Free” is a time-honored marketing term, used liberally. Many rights-holders now wisely advertise when they are offering free content, e.g., “get a free trial to the song here”, to better compete with pirated alternatives, or to drive other revenue streams, such as live performances, subscriptions, merchandise. If services started blocking content online using the term “free,” this could easily penalize lawful services providing promotional content in order to crowd out infringing options.
Rep. Ted Poe goes on this bizarre and ridiculous rant about how he just hates thieves. And, of course, he equates infringement to thievery, despite the rather important differences you'd hope an elected official and lawmaker would know (though it's clear Poe does not). He tops this off by flat out lying at the hearing, suggesting that while sitting there he did a search on Google via his iPhone for "house of cards" and the top results were links to infringing sites. That's simply not true. At all. As plenty of others quickly checked the search and saw, the links are all perfectly legit.
Oyama: House of Cards is a great example. It feeds into the example of "what type of results are showing up." So if you Google "house of cards" take a look at what's there. It's going to be legitimate stuff. It's going to be the show's website... and things about the actors... in terms of feeding back into the search trends conversation...These are our elected officials. Oyama is telling him that the search doesn't have unauthorized links, and he immediately cuts her off saying she "lost him" and demanding she explain how something that isn't happening is happening. Not only that, but he incorrectly believes that there is only one "valid House of Cards" link. Oyama tries again to respond to this, and Poe still isn't having any of it, bizarrely then asking her how an unauthorized provider might get better rankings.
Poe: Just a second, let me interrupt, because you've already lost me. Pull up House of Cards, I think I see the valid House of Cards but I think I see some thievery going on like the second and third and maybe the fourth one. How does that happen?
Poe: Okay, I'm a thief. I'm stealin' House of Cards. How do I get it to be number two when you pull up "house of cards"? That's my question!Oyama points out "it's not number two" and Poe still doesn't get it.
Poe: Okay, three, four. Right up near the top.Oyama again points out that he's just wrong. It's not near the top. And Poe gets sarcastic with a giant smirk:
Poe: Oh? Those are all legitimate sites?Clearly, someone had taken the original silly argument that we had debunked, and given Poe some sort of summary that he didn't understand, leading him to make the bogus claim that (a) he had done the search, when he clearly hadn't, and (b) which then resulted in him going on and on about how search results that don't actually appear could possibly appear, and how Google could stop those results that don't appear from appearing.
And these are the people who are planning to rewrite our copyright laws?
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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, free, judy chu, katherine oyama, search engines, search results, ted poe, tom marino
Companies: google
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Banning the word free
makes perfect sense. After all, we're living in the land of the f-- wait, no that can't be right.Subscribe: RSS
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Wow...
Netflix is a piracy enabler now?
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Re: Wow...
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Re: Wow...
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Re: Wow...
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No, The MPAA/RIAA money will the rewrite of the laws.
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Hey, why not censor "free"?
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Banning the word free
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Re: Banning the word free
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And anyone searching for "free speech" must be looking to pirate one of the short films or series episodes called Speech.
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Apparently, he thinks that hypocrisy stops being hypocrisy if you draw attention to it yourself.
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Probably thinks Wikipedia is "thievery"
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Re: Probably thinks Wikipedia is "thievery"
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Because if they had, they'd probably (though doubt it) get a clue why "free" is being "searched".
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Re:
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What they want
Let's see how that works out.
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Here's an idea
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Personalized Search
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We should then proceed to advertise this in every way possible and have as many people as we can bombard (insert representative name here) with those screenshots along with some text explaining how they are full of it.
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Response to: Angel on Mar 14th, 2014 @ 11:21am
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Re: Response to: Angel on Mar 14th, 2014 @ 11:21am
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Idiot politicians
Same thing with judges! Enough of the ignorant trying to lead the people who actually KNOW.
In fact, didn't a congresswoman recently claim ON THE FLOOR that the Constitution was 400 years old?!
We elect stupid people and now we have a stupid government - funny how it works that way...
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Re: Idiot politicians
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Re: Idiot politicians
With how far their heads are up their asses, this would be a rectal exam right?
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They are, aren't they? They've been immersed in propaganda and rhetoric for so long that they've forgotten what ordinary life is like.
I feel like I should hate them, but all I can feel for them is pity. What miserable, wretched creatures their greed has made of them.
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With such lunatics in Congress
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Always look for the 'SOLD' tag...
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Ummm...
That or he was just flat out lying, which I really wish they'd called him out on, it would have been ridiculously easy to have him list the search results he was seeing, then punch in the same search terms on another computer and list off what it showed that time to compare the two.
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Re: Ummm...
If you have a Google account and you're logged into it, yes.
Also, even if you aren't logged in, if your browser is telling Google your physical location, then the results will be tailored according to that as well.
Personally, I hate that tailoring. It's one of the reasons I stopped using Google to search for things so much.
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Re: Re: Ummm...
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https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr4155
http://poe.house.gov/key-issue-ratio nale/free-flow/
I wonder if he's got a trademark application lurking around somewhere...
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If we ban Free
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Re: If we ban Free
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Real Google Results
In fact the results had quite degraded into uses of the phrase "house of cards" in other contexts.
I have hit page 15 of Google results maybe ten times in my life. It takes an exceptional desperation to travel that far into the desert.
So yeah, total BS.
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Tom Marino
#5 industry donor - TV/Movies/Music $19,500
Judy Chu
#5 industry donor = TV/Movies/Music $16,000
Plus everyone knows if you want to pirate you search for 12 Years a Slave Torrent, or you don't search at all and just type thepiratebay.org
Such idiocy!
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Elected Morons
What a class of techno-illiterate fuckwads we have trying to regulate something. These assholes for the most part can't regulate their own sex-drives or drug habits. Probably not a one of these grand-standing luddites has ever done a search by themselves for anything on Google. They need to shut the fuck up, RIGHT NOW.
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Re: Elected Morons
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This line of thought also neglects a deeper factor...
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Laws
And these are the people who are planning to rewrite our copyright laws?
This should read "And these are the same people that are going to pass a law written by the MPAA/RIAA."
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Did anyone in Congress do an IMDB title search for the word Free?
http://www.imdb.com/find?q=Free&s=tt&ref_=fn_al_tt_mr
Display maxes out at 200 titles returned, there are more than that of course. But basically Hollywood and Congress would like for hundreds, possibly thousands of legitimate works, many of which are created by Hollywood themselves, to be completely unsearchable in the future.
Brilliant!
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My answer would be:
Well, first I'd start by ignoring the lobbyist that handed me this question, Rep. Poe, because he's clearly ignorant about copyright and copyright law. As both the legislation makes clear, and the US Supreme Court has affirmed, you're not 'stealing' anything. Then I'd question the wisdom and fiscal responsbility in holding a hearing just to show the committee member's ignorance over their supposed subject material and finally I'd suggest that if you were REALLY interested in improving your position in a search engine, you'd do what everyone else does, and hire an SEO company, there's thousands out there.
Of course, I'd probably be held in 'contempt' of Congress for that, but it's nothing compared to the contempt I feel for these corrupt PetaQ ...and the horse they rode in on.
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Is this real
So either this guy is a complete idiot or his staffers told him to say these are illegal sites or he's grandstanding. None of these options are very good.
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O'er the land of the ignorant-politicians-who-haven't-bothered-to-think-through-the-implications-of-their-facile-solution s, and the home of the brave.
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Re:
Now, snark and sarcasm may be out, or at least inadvisable, but I totally agree that the google rep should have called him out on his lie, he should have asked the one making the claims to list out, by number, each site he was looking at, and then in return done the same search, and listed out the results he got, as I'm sure they would have been wildly different.
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You don't think
No, Google wouldn't be that evil... right?
PS: There is a cross site scripting issue on Techdirt, pages keep locking and IE freaks out with an attempting cross site scripting attack.
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Re: You don't think
After performing a thorough analysis of all the elements involved in your impromptu bug report, I've determined the problem is due entirely to the fact that you're using IE.
Levity aside, the latter is not necessarily an indication of the former.
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Re: Re: You don't think
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Idiots, and corporate suck ups, no doubt a few heavy pockets and a few extra favours
They want my trust, earn my trust, do not expect my trust as if they feel entitled to it, and the last thing they should do, is point themselves out as those who DONT have my trust.........no actually, thankyou for identifying yourselves.........idiots
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Real problem. Voters
I lived in Chico, ca. Students at the party college outnumbered towns people 6-7:1 when I was there. Yet every time the city, voted officials, past more laws against partying and other typical college pastimes. The major problem is here there are already laws to cover most of this. The real problem is that the students didn't vote in there own politicians. They bitched and complained but never did anything about it. It is illegal to drink alcohol on your lawn in Chico. It's considered a public place. It was intended to stop drinking in communal areas of apartment complexes. Unintended consequences that the police took advantage when it suited them.
I could go on. You know they can't be sure for anything they say? They sit up there and make inflammatory statements that are wrong and we can't do a thing about it.
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No more FREE stuff?
What's their real motivation?
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