Justice Department Hanging Onto Torrent-Finder Because It Doesn't Like How Search Engines Work

from the well-that's-just-great dept

In the wake of the news about the federal government completely censoring dajaz1.com for over a year on no legal basis, we've been wondering about some of the other websites that ICE has seized that have asked for the domains back -- without any further due process. Torrent-finder.com, which unlike the blog Dajaz1.com, is just a search engine, let us know that their situation is just slightly different. But what it comes down to is that the Justice Department doesn't like search engines and is waiting for Torrent-Finder to come up with a way not to find infringing materials:

The status of torrent-finder is different than other domains: we’re working with ICE to regain the domain by proposing methods torrent-finder can modify its search engine to ameliorate problems identified in the seizure. Broadly speaking, these are problems that IPR has identified with search engines in general. We’re confident that this process will result in release of the domain name, and validation that torrent-finder.com’s business is not based on infringement. In the meantime, my client’s torrent-finder.com business has essentially been given the death penalty: over one year has passed with the domain offline, while the wheels of justice seem to grind more slowly than ever.

Is this really what we want or what the law allows? For the government to completely shut down a search engine for over a year with no actual court process, while the search engine gets to "propose" different ways to build a search engine... while waiting (and waiting and waiting) for DOJ officials to get back to them on how search engines should work in their "expert" opinions?

Filed Under: doj, domain seizures, free speech, ice, search engines, stalling
Companies: torrent-finder

UK Politician Pushing For Its Own Version Of PROTECT IP

from the and-so-it-spreads dept

One thing that entertainment industry lobbyists are exceptionally skilled at is making their campaigns global. You notice it all the time. You see a particular (usually bad) law pop up in one country... and, very soon after, nearly identical legislation pops up elsewhere. The really nefarious part is that the lobbyists then use these attempts in a few countries to make it seem like there's a "worldwide push" for such laws -- even though they're all written by the same lobbyists. Even worse, they introduce slight differences in different countries, which then allows them to make use of the most draconian laws in one place to pressure the other countries to ratchet up their own laws in the name of "harmonization" -- usually under the bogus guise of a "free trade agreement."

The latest example of this is that it appears that lobbyists have convinced some UK politicians to create their own version of PROTECT IP, which is now being run up the flagpole by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who says that Google should be liable if it doesn't block links to pirate sites. Of course, the basic description of what he's proposing sounds like a near perfect clone of PROTECT IP:

Hunt is expected to tell the Royal Television Society that search engines, advertisers and credit card companies should go further to “make life more difficult” for online pirates.

According to reports, if a court deems a site to be unlawful the government wants search engines to push it down the rankings to stifle traffic and at the same time cut off advertising or payment revenues to make the site economically unviable.

That sounds almost the same as PROTECT IP, including putting the liability and compliance effort entirely on "search engines, advertisers and credit card companies"... except that in the actual bill the terms are defined much more broadly and ambiguously. In PROTECT IP, it uses "information location tools," "internet advertising services" and "financial transaction provider" (and also domain name system server). Note that "information location tools" and "financial transaction provider" could be interpreted much more broadly than just search engines and credit card companies.

Of course, I'm curious how all the Google critics will react to this. After all, for months, they've been slamming the Hargreaves report for being the "Google copyright review" and insisting that the UK government is in the pocket of Google on copyright issues. Instead, it looks like, as per usual, the government is still very much under the sway of some legacy entertainment industry lobbyists.

Filed Under: protect ip, search engines, uk
Companies: google

Music Industry Wants To Put 'Red Lights' In Google For Sites It Says Support Infringement

from the entitlement-much? dept

The recording industry's massive sense of entitlement continues to spread. The latest is that PRS for Music, the organization that once sought license fees for playing music to horses in a stable, has suggested that Google start putting "traffic lights" in its search results, with red lights being used to indicate sites that the industry accuses of supporting copyright infringement. You can see what they think it should look like here: They say that, in the UK, this would meet the Digital Economy Act's requirement for "consumer education." Of course, one would hope that consumers were "educated" enough to know that just because someone accuses you of copyright infringement, it doesn't mean that you're guilty.

The whole system is modeled on Google's current practice of warning people about potential security problems with sites. Of course, that involves something that can be much more easily confirmed. In the meantime, I imagine that Google -- who spends a ridiculous amount of time and effort to test any UI changes to its search results -- is probably horrified by that graphic above.

Filed Under: copyright, search engines, traffic lights, uk
Companies: ifpi

Torrent-Finder Plans To Fight Domain Seizure

from the testing-prior-restraint dept

I had mentioned recently that I fully expected at least one or two of the owners of the domain names seized by Homeland Security to challenge the seizures. While the government seemed to think that these sites were so "obviously" infringing that no one would dare challenge the seizures, that seemed hard to believe.

And, in fact, it appears that the operators of Torrent-Finder, a pure search engine that hosts no infringing content, are planning to challenge the seizure, and have hired a lawyer for that purpose. To be honest, I think that the various hiphop blogs that were seized may have a stronger case. I actually think that Torrent-Finder has a pretty strong case as well, but as we've seen in our own comments, it's easier for folks who don't understand how search engines work to automatically assume Torrent Finder must be illegal because people use it to find infringing content.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, domain names, homeland security, ice, search engines, seizures
Companies: torrent finder

As The Pirate Bay Guys Lose Their Appeal, When Does Google Regret Not Coming To Their Defense?

from the search-engines... dept

As you probably already know, last Friday (while we were enjoying some much needed time off), the Swedish appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling against the four guys the entertainment industry claims were behind The Pirate Bay. The appeals court shortened the jail sentences, but increased the fines that each had to pay (one of the original four guys, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, missed this trial, but will be tried again separately). I don't think anyone watching the two trials is all that surprised by the outcome -- though, if you look at the details, it certainly suggests a court and law enforcement system that still has no clue concerning what it was actually dealing with. One of the defendants, Peter, has a rather interesting blog post (Google translation from the original Swedish) in which he details a number of blatant factual errors made by the courts in the latest ruling. I'm sure that those who dislike The Pirate Bay will not pay attention to what he has to say and will assume he is lying. But it does appear that much of the ruling against Peter is based on a pretty blatant misunderstanding of basic technology, blaming him for things it's unlikely he had anything to do with whatsoever.

What strikes me about this ruling -- and Homeland Security's seizure of a bunch of domain names, which I'll cover in a later post -- is that at some point, I believe Google is going to regret not getting involved on the side of The Pirate Bay in this trial. It's obvious why they did that. Google is already having enough trouble with the entertainment industry, and The Pirate Bay is still seen as sort of radioactive when it comes to these discussions. Supporting The Pirate Bay was simply not politically possible. In fact, Google went the other direction and tried to specifically distance itself from The Pirate Bay. Yet, for all intents and purposes, The Pirate Bay was also a search engine. A specialized one, but really no different in important respects than Google. The specific points that got The Pirate Bay in trouble could all be equally applied to a general purpose search engine like Google. And with Google already dealing with executives given prison sentences due to its services in other countries, you'd think it would be a bit more sensitive to realizing the slippery slope created when you send someone to jail for the way a search engine is used.

Filed Under: copyright, liability, search engines, sweden, the pirate bay
Companies: google, the pirate bay

Brazilian TV Host Gets Court To Demand Google Censor Results Pointing To A Movie She Was Once In

from the right-to-forget? dept

While we were encouraged by a proposal in Brazil that would make it much more difficult to get content taken down without a trial or giving whoever put the content up a chance to respond (and also by a proposal to make fair use equally as important as copyright), to date, Brazilian courts have a tragically bad history of enforcing censorship based on content someone doesn't like. Google, for example, has been on the losing end of lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit in Brazil -- and all of it over third party content.

The latest such example comes from reader Fabop, who notes that Xuxa Meneghel, a well-known host of a Brazilian children's TV show has been able to get the courts to issue an injunction against Google (Google translation of the original Portuguese) because she was upset at the results that came up when people did a search for "Xuxa pedophile."

If you're wondering why people would do such a search -- or why there were Google results on it, apparently, back in 1982, Xuxa Meneghel started in a film, Amor, Estranho Amor (Love, Strange Love) in which she played a pedophile prostitute who seduces an 11-year-old boy. Of course, that's factual information -- but she's upset that when people search on those terms, it returns articles about the movie, and pictures from the movie. This seems somewhat similar to the various attempts to create "right to forget" laws in Europe. Apparently, Meneghel has even been successful in getting the actual movie banned from distribution, even though the company who owns the film rights would like to continue distributing it.

Google is apparently a bit upset that this temporary injunction was issued without anyone bothering to inform Google (Google translation from the original Portuguese, and it sounds like the company will try to fight the injunction.

The company points out -- accurately -- that it's merely indexing the content that's out there, and is not responsible for it. However, Xuxa's lawyer mocks them for this claim, saying that Google can and should block such content, and that the court system in Brazil is "tired" of deciding whether or not search engines are responsible for the content to which they link.

Filed Under: brazil, links, search engines, takedowns, xuxa meneghel
Companies: google

Wait, So The RIAA Is Offended That Google Won't Do Work For Free?

from the i-thought-free-was-bad? dept

The RIAA and the IFPI have been going on and on for years about just how ridiculous it is for people to suggest music should be "free." They will go on, at great length, to talk up the "value" of music and how it should be paid for. But, apparently, they don't think that applies to anyone else. They're apparently screaming angry at Google because Google (gasp) responded to their request to provide them tools to help them track down unauthorized copies, by quoting their standard prices for how much it costs to use Google's API. So, RIAA, please explain: why is it sacrilege for you to demand people pay up, but it's even worse if Google asks you to pay to use its resources?

Filed Under: apis, copyright, fees, policing, search engines
Companies: google, riaa

Details In Mulve Arrest Highlight How Weak The Case Is

from the so-why-so-quick-on-the-arrest? dept

Last week, in talking about how one of the guys behind Mulve was arrested by UK police, we noted the similarities to the arrest a few years ago of OiNK administrator Alan Ellis on "conspiracy to defraud" charges that were eventually thrown out as Ellis didn't actually break the law.

TorrentFreak now has the details of the Mulve arrest, where police are using the exact same charges, even with a failure to get those charges to stick against Ellis. And, the article details why such charges are even weaker against the Mulve guy they arrested. First of all, he had nothing to do with the software itself, but merely registered the domain and created the video highlighting how to use the software. But, much more interesting are the details behind Mulve. It's not even a search engine by itself. It's simply an interface for an existing search engine on a Russian social network, which anyone could sign up for and get access to already. In other words, going after Mulve totally misses the point, and it's difficult to see how Mulve itself actually violates UK law.

Of course, in pushing authorities to arrest the Mulve guy, it appears that all that's really happened is the recording industry has drawn a lot more attention to how Mulve works, leading to multiple clones of the software quickly popping up. You would think the industry would know by now how this whole hydra process works, but apparently they still haven't gotten the message.

Filed Under: arrest, conspiracy to defraud, interface, mulve, search engines, uk
Companies: ifpi, mulve

Google Wants Court To Say That Links To Music Files Don't Mean Google Is Infringing Copyrights

from the could-be-useful dept

We've noted in the past some of the similarities, from a legal standpoint, of search engines like Google, and music search engines/bittorrent tracker sites -- and yet the music search sites keep getting shut down. So we thought it was interesting late last year when a small indie label, called Blues Destiny sued both Google and Microsoft because search results on the site pointed to unauthorized copies of Blues Destiny music that was hosted on RapidShare. There were all sorts of problems with the lawsuit, but we wondered if the ruling would at least touch on some important issues concerning music search engines. However, it appears that Blues Destiny folks realized they had no case and dismissed the lawsuit... though it told Google that it still believed the company infringed on its copyrights, and it intended to refile the lawsuit.

Eric Goldman points us to the news that after waiting a couple of weeks for Blues Destiny to refile, and having its lawyers tell Google that they believed Google still violated the company's copyrights, Google has come back and filed for a declaratory judgment that it does not violate Blues Destiny copyrights: So, who knows... perhaps we will get a ruling that could be applicable to other search engines after all...

Filed Under: copyright, infringement, links, search engines
Companies: blues destiny, google

Lord Lucas Keeps Wanting To Chip Away At Digital Economy Bill: Exempt Search Engines

from the how-will-rupert-murdoch-survive dept

We've been discussing how Lord Lucas in the UK has spoken out against Peter Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill, which would give Mandelson (and his successors or anyone he deputized) massive powers to change copyright law on a whim. Beyond that, the technology-savvy Lord Lucas has been proposing various amendments to the bill, including requiring copyright holders to detail actual damages and also a penalty for bogus copyright threats.

Another proposed amendment, as pointed out by Copycense would automatically exempt search engines from copyright law. While, for the most part, what search engines do seem to be covered by existing law (fair use, and the like), there are still some questions about whether or not the fundamental actions of search engines do or do not infringe. Clearly exempting them, however, could expand what search engines could do in some pretty impressive ways. This would also serve to negate the threats by the likes of Rupert Murdoch to remove News Corp. content from Google (since Google could then ignore any attempted block, as there would be no copyright violation).

Filed Under: copyright, digital economy bill, exemption, lord lucas, search engines