UK to Google, Bing, Yahoo: Act against piracy or face legislation

Himanshu Arora

Posts: 902   +7

The UK government has warned Internet search firms like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and more that it would not hesitate to bring in a legislation if they don't stop referring people to pirate sites.

Addressing senior music industry executives at the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) AGM, UK Culture Secretary Sajid Javid said that he along with Business Secretary Vince Cable had written to leading search engine companies requesting they work with record firms to come up with a way to tackle websites that infringe copyright laws.

“I know some people say the IP genie is out of the bottle and that no amount of wishing will force it back in. But I don’t agree with them”, he said.

Pointing to statistics from the communications regulator Ofcom, Javid said that in just one quarter of last year almost 200 million music tracks were consumed illegally, and another 100 million games, films, books and TV programs were pirated. 

Javid also talked about the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), which is being funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and run by the City of London Police to combat intellectual property crime.

“The first unit of its kind in the world, PIPCU is working with industry groups – including the BPI – on the Infringing Websites List. The list identifies sites that deliberately and consistently breach copyright, so brand owners can avoid advertising on them”, he said.

Detailing the Creative Content initiative, which the government is supporting to the tune of nearly £3.5m, Javid said it retains the basic idea of the Digital Economy Act, but will be quicker, more responsive, and cheaper to enact.

He also said that when it comes to tackling IP theft, the Government, the music industry, and the technology companies are "three sides of the same triangle", and all three must work together to build a fair and legal online economy.

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Well, if these media companies would get off their collective a$$es and come up with ideas that are fair and have the consumer in mind, they wouldn't have this problem. Agreed that some people download just because they can and wouldn't buy the product anyways, but that number would be considerably lower once you find a way to let people feel they are buying your product is at a fair price and don't have to be a lawyer to be able to read and abide by your EULA. It used to be when you bought something, you owned it. Period. They need to get as close to going back to that ideal as they can and quit making a bunch of rules that make the buying customer feel like they are being taken advantage of.
 
If someone found a jewellery store to rob by looking in the yellow pages, is it yellow pages fault?
 
If someone found a jewellery store to rob by looking in the yellow pages, is it yellow pages fault?
Not sure analogy is quite accurate. Yellow pages refuse listings under headings like "Pickpockets" and "Counterfeiters / Forgers". Taking a few steps to deny coverage to the illegal stuff is not a bad idea, just hard to really implement. I can understand that the search firms might be uncomfortable about it when an incorrect denial can impact honest, innocent folks - and cost a bit of money to correct/resolve. Sometimes legislation is a good idea, if it involves the regulated in formulating something which can be reasonably accomplished.
 
British Citizen to UK government: You dont speak for us your absolutely useless stop trying to make the internet harder and more costly to use, first catch the real criminals then the virtual ones...
 
Previously the UK forced ISPs to block adult media for new service subscribers by default (with opt out to the block) (link to curb access for minors and those otherwise not wanting to view that content. That failed miserably.(link While that is not entirely related to the subject at hand, it is an example of the effacy of the Government's attempt at controlling content access... I'm not saying that it should not be done, but at the same time the Government will likely want to force search providers to use the same heavy handed tactics not unlike their previous attempts... And search providers likely won't let it happen that way.
 
Another group of politicians who probably don't understand how search engines work. The DMCA already exists to combat piracy. Do these politicians wanna spend 8 hours everyday of their life making sure there are no links to pirated software in a sea of billions? Do they think Google has the time to review every available link? Sounds like somebody is out of touch with reality.

Sounds like the UK Government wants it both ways. Maybe Google should shut down their services in the UK cold turkey. That would take care of their problem, yes?

No more piracy in the UK. Oh, and by the way. Find your own websites from now on. Good luck.
 
If someone found a jewellery store to rob by looking in the yellow pages, is it yellow pages fault?
Not sure analogy is quite accurate. Yellow pages refuse listings under headings like "Pickpockets" and "Counterfeiters / Forgers". .

It isnt the job of the Yellow Pages to do the police's job either. They do it out of courtesy. These search engines shouldn't be forced to police themselves just because a torrent site is listed and a media company wants it done and will make their life easier.
 
It isnt the job of the Yellow Pages to do the police's job either. They do it out of courtesy. These search engines shouldn't be forced to police themselves just because a torrent site is listed and a media company wants it done and will make their life easier.
I think that they would appreciate a bit of legislation in order to say that 'we had to'. This doesn't mean they want something draconian.
 
Downloading movies and music should be as legal and simple as watching TV. Do you feel like you are pirating movie when you watch it in TV? Ofc not. Why should anyone feel guilty when they stream/download a movie from internet?

They should make possible to watch (stream/download) legally stuff from web with ads (like TV) and/or work out some "internet tax" so consumer does not have to ponder about stuff's legality he or she is consuming. If there is no legal way to stream/download stuff from internet (for example geolocking sites like Netflix and HBO and others it the WRONG way ... I would gladly pay subscription if they let me... but they say "Sorry, Netflix is not available in your country yet." etc), it's really not consumers fault they are kind of forced to download only stuff available (that might not be legal).
 
Bah! All politicians talk tough but in reality they're only gifted liars, bullies and as con artists and they are pretty useless at most things apart counting their money. You can rest assured they didn't become politicians for the greater good of man, only to enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayer.
Do you think that this chump who is shouting the odds in Britain really gives a stuff about piracy? Of course not but it will help him look good come election time.
 
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If I buy a mobile, why the ~#@??! do I have to sit through 5 minute warning about piracy, 5 minutes of advertisement of other rubbish and fiddly menus. If I bought it then it already proves I am not pirating it. On the other hand, pirated versions only require me to hit play.
 
Downloading movies and music should be as legal and simple as watching TV.

Totally agree. Many different levels of access (pay2vue, subscription, advertising, etc) should be openly availble. False scarcity economic models drive me nuts. The content owners are just not focused on their customers, but on sloppy, greedy ideas of how it should be made to work. No legislation should support that. However, there will be cheats - and a bit of regulation to make that harder to do is also a good idea.
 
If someone found a jewellery store to rob by looking in the yellow pages, is it yellow pages fault?
Not sure analogy is quite accurate. Yellow pages refuse listings under headings like "Pickpockets" and "Counterfeiters / Forgers". Taking a few steps to deny coverage to the illegal stuff is not a bad idea, just hard to really implement. I can understand that the search firms might be uncomfortable about it when an incorrect denial can impact honest, innocent folks - and cost a bit of money to correct/resolve. Sometimes legislation is a good idea, if it involves the regulated in formulating something which can be reasonably accomplished.

there are tons of stores listed in yellow pages that sell fake/clone/copy brands that illegal.
 
Well, that should make the job of finding and stopping them much easier for BPI and PIPCU.
not really, because they don't advertise it as such. Just the same as google can't be held laible for pirated material... they can't investigate and verify each link in the world to see if its genuine or not since its just impossible.
 
I still find it hilarious there's a government established agency dedicated to all things "protecting porn".
 
The UK Government is a farce. I can't help but slate this country more for its inept bribe taking fat cats who do nothing but make this country worse on a daily basis.
As someone said, they obviously don't know how search engines work. The don't know how anything works.
There was a point where they didn't seem to mind who did what on the internet. They knew nothing about it. Another thing adopted from another country really, with no idea to its affect, just that it made jobs and money so how could it be bad ?
But obviously some businesses somewhere MPAA RIAA FACT etc, are now all bitching about the money they aren't losing....
If, someone downloads something from the internet. It is probably because they had no intention of buying it. Saying that, downloading proved to help increase the sales of Music in the UK. Proven.
They say that downloading means less money for the people involved. However less than 1% of celebrities get their royalties apparently. I assume all the middle men take their cut and nothing is left. All the middle men who do nothing and deserve nothing. So stars, have nothing to complain about, no one does, cept those in the middle with their not really a job job, of making money off everyone else.
But as I said, the Government wouldn't know any of this, they don't need to, all they need to know, is that, someone paid them to combat piracy, and this is their " we told them, look we are doing something" gesture.
 
Here we go again, big media still belly aching about DRM and piracy. How long has this same 'song' been going on? Hmm? While the rest of the world has changed to fit this digital environment, big media wants the world to change first before they start re-hashing their business methods. Well wake up, piracy isn't the big bad wolf. Furthermore, in a world where the advertising market is hyper-inflated, the same torrent sites you yearn to destroy are proliferating your product, FOR FREE!!!

This is just like when MPAA forced us to watch movies in aspects our tv's couldn't display properly. Heck, I'm still trying to get these damn bars off my screen. I watch the same movie on Netflix and everything is perfectly fit to my screen, now that's real progress.
 
Lol if the pirates can't get their booty they will just use a different search engine. Hell, they might even make their own pirate search engine. The only real aggressive way to stop piracy is to start charging a piracy tax on ISP's (which of course REALLY means the consumer). That, of course, is not going to work out well for anyone. The last REAL option these media companies have is: start charging fairly. stop pulling EULA bullshit (as mentioned above) so that we actually own the things we buy again. and start GAINING RESPECT FROM THE PEOPLE THEY GOUGE BY NOT GOUGING! herpin derpin what an idea
 
Lol if the pirates can't get their booty they will just use a different search engine. Hell, they might even make their own pirate search engine. The only real aggressive way to stop piracy is to start charging a piracy tax on ISP's (which of course REALLY means the consumer). That, of course, is not going to work out well for anyone. The last REAL option these media companies have is: start charging fairly. stop pulling EULA bullshit (as mentioned above) so that we actually own the things we buy again. and start GAINING RESPECT FROM THE PEOPLE THEY GOUGE BY NOT GOUGING! herpin derpin what an idea

Online digital media, you've already lost the war for your greed before you even started fighting it. This is a losing war for you that you continue to wage on the consumer. It's time to start being reasonable before the world moves on without you completely.
 
Seriously, is using the search engine to download is even relevant now? Most the results are either useless (fake download with exe virus lol...) or to index to a torrent site (which we know and loved thanks to publicity). Pirates have evolved, going the free route (mediafire, 4shared, mega) is probably harder to find or takes longer (torrent) the paid route (seedbox, leecher, vps, vpn) however is much more easier and safer. It has been proven that taking down torrent site is a wild-goose chase (kickass, thepiratebay, eztv, etc or mega maybe?) and probably a chase that could take decades after decades. If Google, Bing and Yahoo comply, it wont take long before another "solution" come to play, piracy is like a virus that cannot be killed by a single cure, because it learns the cure and counteract with it. As long as technology begins to grow so will piracy. Its the means and distribution of media should evolved. But wait, thats not what they are looking for are they, no, they knew this, they are not stupid , after all its all about the money....
 
...[ ]...Do you think that this chump who is shouting the odds in Britain really gives a stuff about piracy? Of course not but it will help him look good come election time.
Maybe everyone in Britain's entertainment industry would be voting for him, I certainly wouldn't.

If your platform is, "I want to make absolutely certain that my campaign contributors get paid for every last stinking bit of crap content they create", why would anyone vote for him or her?
 
Or maybe the mass produced dogma is fundamentally flawed and goes against human nature.

A hard thing to accept: Some things can only be attributed value through the honor of those who did not create it. Piracy proves what people are unwilling to accept.
 
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