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Google Says It Removes 1 Million Infringing Links Monthly

By Dan8267   Follow   Sat, 26 May 2012, 5:39pm   1,099 views   9 comments
In Boca Raton FL 33433   Watch (1)   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike  

Each month, Google removes more than 1 million links to infringing content such as movies, video games, music and software from its search results — with about half of those requests for removal last month coming from Microsoft.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-infringing-link-removal/

The First Amendment protects the right to link to anything, even websites that "break laws". Linking is literally pointing. To make linking to anything illegal is to make communication about subject matters illegal. No free society does that.

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1. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,240 threads 6,175 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA Premium

   1   9:30pm Sat 26 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   True! When you are not legally allowed to even talk about something, that means you have the obligation to to scream it in the streets. No link should be removed from Google's search results ever. So much for their "Don't be evil" motto. They are perfectly evil now.

2. Kevin Follow Befriend 40 threads 2,652 comments

   2   5:07pm Sun 27 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Removing links is required by the dmca as far as I'm aware. Posting the requests publicly is the best you can do without breaking the law. No company fights the copyright mafia as hard as google. To call that evil is idiotic.

3. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,240 threads 6,175 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA Premium

   3   7:08pm Sun 27 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Censorship is pure evil. To be told you may not even say the name or url of a site the government does not want you to visit is pure evil. To cooperate with such censorship is also pure evil. Google could refuse to cooperate with that evil. But they don't. They go along with it and don't seem to raise any public objection to that censorship. Therefore Google is perfectly evil.

4. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (17) 785 threads 7,972 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

   4   9:38pm Sun 27 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   I don't blame Google for removing the links they are forced to since the government can pretty much fuck you over for not complying. What I got from the article is the shock of just how extensive censorship under the DMCA is. I suppose Google could fight back by exercising their right to remove all government sites from search results. Make the government pay a price for censoring other content. Other than that and lobbying, which Google has done, I'm not sure Google could do much. If Google did simply refuse to remove any links like pirateabay.se refuses to remove any torrents, what would happen? Would the government just fine Google an obscene amount of money every day and seize their bank assets? I doubt the government would shut down Google as doing so would effectively end any politicians career who tried it since both business and people depend on it. I suppose Google could fight back from government retaliation by simply shutting down until the government backs down. The government can't force Google to keep its service up and the disruption to the economy would be enormous if Google did shut down even for a week. But there would be huge long-term ramifications for doing that. Still, I would kind of like to see that fight.

5. Kevin Follow Befriend 40 threads 2,652 comments

   5   3:54am Mon 28 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Patrick says Google could refuse to cooperate with that evil. But they don't. They go along with it and don't seem to raise any public objection to that censorship. Yeah, Google could break the law, and promptly be out of business. Don't raise any objection? You mean like Google's opposition to SOPA and other legislation, publishing the list of takedowns, etc.? NOBODY else is doing this. Not even close. Sorry, Patrick, but you're dead wrong on this one. Therefore Google is perfectly evil. Oh please. Doing everything you can short of breaking the law is now "evil"? Horse shit, plain and simple. Please find me one example of ANY company that has done even a fraction as much as google has to fight censorship and copyright extremism. By the way, you might want to see what the actual takedown requests are. They're not censoring any information -- it's links to pirated content. It's not the government telling google what to take down, it's copyright holders. There's a very valid discussion that should be had about how the law deals with piracy, but to say that Google is evil for complying with existing laws like the DMCA which are actually fairly reasonable when you get down to it is moronic and short sighted. Dan8267 says Would the government just fine Google an obscene amount of money every day and seize their bank assets? It's not "the government" doing anything here, unless we're talking about takedown requests from the government itself. Takedowns exist as part of the safe harbor provision of the DMCA, which allows an internet service to avoid liability for infringement by one of its users. The risk of non-compliance is opening yourself up to massive lawsuits. I don't know that there exists any good alternative here. I definitely believe that copyright holders have the right to decide how and where their works are distributed (though most of them are doing it wrong, which is why there's as much piracy as there is), as do most people. There are a bunch of things wrong with the DMCA, but the takedown process is not one of them.

6. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (17) 785 threads 7,972 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

   6   6:59pm Mon 28 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Kevin says It's not "the government" doing anything here All laws including copyrights are enforce by the government using violence and/or the threat of violence. The problem I have is that Google isn't violating copyrights. It's indexing the web. And that shouldn't be censored.

7. Kevin Follow Befriend 40 threads 2,652 comments

   7   5:01pm Tue 29 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Sure, it would be nice if just linking wasn't considered a copyright infringing activity, but that's up to courts and congress to fix, not search engines.

8. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (17) 785 threads 7,972 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

   8   8:41pm Tue 29 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Kevin says Sure, it would be nice if just linking wasn't considered a copyright infringing activity, but that's up to courts and congress to fix, not search engines. The courts and Congress won't fix it unless their is considerable backlash from big companies like Google. The courts and Congress have no conscience and no respect for the Constitution. It takes political pressure to change those two institutions. And Google could do that in a number of ways: 1. Refuse to include government and lobbyist sites in search results. That will really get the politicians attention! 2. Refuse to provide the search service to anyone coming from a government IP. That will make the rank-n-file bureaucrats complain to Congress. 3. Hold a backout period to pressure Congress to repeal the offensive legislation. If it costs the economy more money than they gain from copyright laws, then Congress will cave. After all, it's all about the money. Again, these actions have repercussions. So I'm not surprised that Google isn't taking them, but it would be nice if they did.

9. Kevin Follow Befriend 40 threads 2,652 comments

   9   4:32pm Wed 30 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   That wouldn't be effective, it would be petty. I also don't personally think the take down process is a bad thing in and of itself. It beats the shit out of all alternative proposals.