UK Recording Industry Doesn't Want Google To Reduce Piracy Until It Reduces Piracy
from the trapped-in-the-past dept
Techdirt has written before about the self-destructive vindictiveness of the copyright industries, which would rather die in a futile attempt to stamp out piracy than embrace new ways of making money that will help to reduce piracy anyway. Here’s another example of this blinkered approach from the UK, pointed out to us by Techdirt user Zakida:
The body which represents the UK’s biggest record labels says it “doesn’t make sense” for Google not to tackle piracy when it’s launching a new, legal music service.
Google says it wants its new music service, Google Play Music, to wipe out piracy on Android devices.
But the BPI claims the firm is not keeping its promise to make it harder to find illegal download sites.
We know that when music streaming services became available in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, illegal downloads were halved. The BPI’s obsession with punishing illegal download sites blinds it to the fact that Google plans to launch a far better way of dealing with them: not through extrajudicial censorship in the form of doctored search results, but simply by offering something that people are happy to pay for. The UK recording industry should be embracing new ventures like Google Play Music wholeheartedly, not using them as bargaining chips in its pointless fight over search results.
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Filed Under: legal services, piracy, uk
Companies: bpi, google
Comments on “UK Recording Industry Doesn't Want Google To Reduce Piracy Until It Reduces Piracy”
Pirate sites just need to replace common pirate-y words with music company/organization names such as useing ‘BPI’ instead of torrent.
Then as Google complies with BPI’s order to remove potential illegal download site results in their searches, nothing would be returned for BPI or BPI’s properties, as that is now a common designator for copyright infringing content.
Re: Re:
Excellent idea. Because the word torrent is so long and hard to type we need to start using the acronym BPI for Bittorrent Payload Indicator instead. Think of all the time saved by not typing the 4 extra letters!
BPI helps improve pirates lives again.
Perhaps they should worry less about ‘other’ sites and services getting higher search engine results and worry more about their own offerings. Use a few SEO techniques to improve the visibility of their legal and approved services, do more to advertise them, and stop trying to squeeze as much money as possible from legal services in the guise of ‘licensing’.
It has been said many times before and it should be said again – the only way you will beat the pirate services is to offer a better service.
Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
“It has been said many times before and it should be said again – the only way you will beat the pirate services is to offer a better service.” — It’s a magic formula you recite, but has no effect, particularly not on people who aren’t going to pay in any event.
As a hedge, you fill in with fantasy assertion that piracy will go away once “service” is available. You sort of mean cheaper, but I wouldn’t pay the Itunes rate either (for mere digital data!), and since I’d only know of those from “free” outlets (radio or streaming), I could particularly from latter get the tune for free. — And where does that leave the pricing: You can’t compete with free!
You are mainly refusing to admit that consuming content one hasn’t paid for should be held morally wrong. It is taking someone else’s work-product while denying them reward for effort.
Let’s see. — OH, here’s an aspect we’ve not gone round on: you pirates don’t grasp that we’re living in a new age where your “free market” assumptions don’t apply. First, the instant millionaires of dotcom boom were largely only possible by stealing someone else’s content. Conditions are different today. 2nd, similarly for legal services, the net isn’t the quick riches it once was. 3rd, Big Media is moving. 4th, the reducing moral constraints against simply taking someone else’s work mean the trend will accelerate.
And for all your talk of “new business models”, you don’t have one, just claim that every new conventional service is a triumph. But Napster proved that MOST PEOPLE WOULD RATHER NOT PAY!
If pirate sites CAN’T “monetize” content because blocked through gov’t action, YET Big Media CAN’T “monetize” it either because of rampant piracy, then everything about the net falls apart!
Re: Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
Except that artists compete with free all the time and make a handsome living.
Music sells, DVDs sell, concert tickets sell, movie box office always post record sales. Are they not competing with free? Millions of people (myself included) go out and buy content despite it being available for free. Is this not competing with free?
Re: Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
“particularly not on people who aren’t going to pay in any event”
OOTB if they aren’t going to pay, even if you were able to force them, then what’s the point in chasing them?
The simple fact is that when Spotify was introduced filesharing was decimated.
Unfortunately due to greed by the music industy Spotify had to change their business model and now piracy is rampant again.
Re: Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
You nitwit!
As a hedge, you fill in with fantasy assertion that piracy will go away once “service” is available.
As if anybody, ever, said that. You can throw all the laws, dollars, and moral postulation at any supposed offense and you will never eradicate it. Read: War on Drugs. Now matter how severe the penalty, no matter how much moral derision, you will always have somebody, somewhere willing to risk commission. Name one law or punishment that has eliminated every case of that specific crime.
But Napster proved that MOST PEOPLE WOULD RATHER NOT PAY!
Until iTunes came along was there even an online alternative to purchase digital files that was run by “authorized” services? Napster proved that there wasn’t a market for shiny discs and what people wanted was digital music files. When iTunes came along with a service that was actually competitive to the ‘free’ options, plenty were willing to pay for the service.
Re: Re: Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
Please stop throwing facts at OOTB. It makes him cry.
Besides, there is little, if any point in replying to anything OOTB may post, simply report and move on, if he gets even one reply he feels he is a man and he is emboldened.
Re: Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
“It’s a magic formula you recite, but has no effect, particularly not on people who aren’t going to pay in any event.”
It’s not a magic formula, it’s a fact. If people have no legal means to acquire something then by default they will use illegal means. But what extensive research has proven, and which can be verified, is that if legal services are brought into an area and are reasonably priced (which DOES NOT mean free) then the people will turn to them instead. Spotify is proof of this, and it is because of this proof that it was even brought into the United States.
“As a hedge, you fill in with fantasy assertion that piracy will go away once “service” is available.”
This has NEVER been stated by anyone on the site. What has been said is that piracy will be REDUCED once legal services are available and not limited in any way, shape or form. But piracy itself is something that always has been around and always will be around. That’s just a fact, and one that will never change (regardless of laws and/or punishments for it).
“You sort of mean cheaper, but I wouldn’t pay the Itunes rate either (for mere digital data!), and since I’d only know of those from “free” outlets (radio or streaming), I could particularly from latter get the tune for free.”
Well, what YOU would or wouldn’t pay for is irrelevant. But the billion dollar business that is iTunes is testament to the fact that PEOPLE, not you, will pay for digital downloads. Ditto Netflix, Pandora, Amazon, etc. If the rates are reasonable, which they are, people will turn to them. As they are easier to “purchase” from than the illegal options.
“And where does that leave the pricing: You can’t compete with free!”
Evian, Ozarka, Dannon, Nestle, etc would ALL like to have a word with you. Or better said they’d like you to explain “You can’t compete with free!” to them, seeing as how they all profit greatly from bottled water and it too is a hundred million, if not billion, dollar a year business. Despite the fact that water can be had for free, which some of those companies actually use as the source for their bottled versions.
“You are mainly refusing to admit that consuming content one hasn’t paid for should be held morally wrong.”
No one is refusing to admit anything. What people are doing is leaving morality at the door as it is purely subjective and completely irrelevant to factual data, which shows that people will pay for convenience.
“It is taking someone else’s work-product while denying them reward for effort.”
This too is speculative and in no way fact based. You have no way to confirm or deny that the people whose works are being enjoyed, because they are not being taken (merely copied), are not being rewarded. Quite a few people get turned onto television shows or bands through illegal downloads, and then become fans and go on to purchase things they would never have purchased in the first place.
So again, this is a sentence where you attempt to play the morality card to some degree. Which is rather hilarious considering just the other day you were blasting Mike for doing something similar, but actually not even remotely similar. Regarding the nine-year old whose home was raided, that was a fact. The child was nine, but you made it out to be that Mike only pointed out the age to play upon feelings, and went off about it at length. Yet here you are, doing the same thing. Hypocrisy thy name is Out_of_the_Blue.
And you know what, I’m not gonna bother ripping apart the rest of your rant. It’s been done before by myself and others. You’ve no new talking points and the ones you have are so fucking wrong/incorrect that only an idiot, see OotB/bob, would even think for a moment that they were true. Hint: They’re not.
Anyway, I’m done ripping you a new one. If the task was an easier I could do it in my sleep. Which speaks to how pathetic your arguments are and how sad an individual you are.
Re: Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
You just read the above comment for free…
Wait, no you didn’t. You’ve said yourself that you never read the articles or comments.
Please, for the love of god, don’t explain to me your twisted morals. You quote (copy) others without paying them for their content, then denounce the very same act as being immoral. What does that make you?
Re: Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
It’s a magic formula you recite, but has no effect, particularly not on people who aren’t going to pay in any event.
There are very few people, even pirates, who will not “pay in any event.”
I am a pirate. I am not afraid or ashamed to admit it. I actively promote that people to break copyright law.
Yet streaming services like Spotify have made it so that even I don’t bother pirating (unless the music isn’t available on the service).
Get with the program and face reality.
You are mainly refusing to admit that consuming content one hasn’t paid for should be held morally wrong. It is taking someone else’s work-product while denying them reward for effort.
Why admit something that is wrong and ethically unjustifiable? There is no moral right to profit. It is the owning and control over ideas and culture which is morally wrong. Denying all people everywhere the free exchange of ideas and culture, which can be infinitely copied and distributed at no to little cost is unethical.
Re: Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
If I weren’t paying for Netflix, I’d pirate a lot of movies.
Re: Re: @Zakida Paul: You can't compete with free.
Dotcom boom? Oh, right, because no one would ever use the Internet except to steal content.
So if you’re on the Internet now, out_of_the_asscrack, what does that make you?
If pirate sites can’t “monetise” content then there’s no “rampant piracy”, you dumb twat. Wasn’t it your ilk that insist that site blocking would defeat piracy? If, by that point, your precious RIAA still can’t make money that’s nobody’s damn business.
Everything about the ‘net falls apart? Okay, how about you tell all businesses that have international divisions and sectors that the only reason they’re on the Internet is to steal music. Good luck with that.
Re: Re:
No the best way to kill piracy is closing down business. Then nothing will be pirated. It is a very creative way of trying to deal with piracy, but I am pretty sure that in the end it will be more effective.
Actually if they put more money into fighting piracy the effect will happen faster. Therefore I am appaled by the reduction of funding to RIAA. I thought they were getting the strategy!
Re: Re: Re:
“No the best way to kill piracy is closing down business”
So long as it is the MAFIAA members closing down.
So long as the file locker and torrent services have a significant amount of pirated music available the labels can use this as a lever to try and get them shut down. However if these services only offer legal independent music this excuse is removed.
The real danger to the labels are these services competing with them as a legal source of music. Therefore they do not want to lose this means of attacking their competitors, which includes over the top actions against pirates as a means of scaring people away from getting any music ovet the Internet.
“Google says it wants its new music service, Google Play Music, to wipe out piracy on Android devices.
But the BPI claims the firm is not keeping its promise to make it harder to find illegal download sites.”
What are they? Stupid?
If more legal services are available, illegal services will be harder to find because they’ll be buried under the legal ones.
I don’t think there is a facepalm big enough for this situation.
Re: Re:
Not even:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qWhA3Yty4fM/TZkmEMlBgRI/AAAAAAAAKuM/aUCWhR8RGys/s1600/Epic_Facepalm_by_RJTH%2525255B1%2525255D%255B1%255D.jpg
Re: Re:
Yes, yes they are. The record companies have been told for decades to provide legal download services. They have utterly failed to ever lift a finger and even try.
Instead they have allowed tech companies control the distribution of their music digitally. Apple and Amazon distribute almost all of the legal music downloads. The record companies even lost their beloved DRM because they needed to allow Amazon to compete with Apple on a level playing field. Now Google will be getting into the music distribution business.
Stupid is an understatement for what the record companies are doing. They have willingly handed over total control of their distribution channel to other companies. Ironically, these companies all sell music playing devices that don’t have and do not connect to CD’s. Even the last five updates of Apple’s full computers no longer have CD drives. Phones, ipads, fires, and nexus’ do not have drives either. The CD is dead, digital distribution is all that will be left soon. And Apple and Amazon OWN distribution.
I always wondered why Apple, Google, or Amazon didn’t buy a record company and show the others how its done in the digital age. But I’ve come to the realization that they don’t have to.
Companies used to threaten to pull their songs from iTunes to hurt Apple. Now they will face a future where they can pull their songs from the digital stores, but doing that will now be no different from just going out of business.
The record companies are screwed, the endgame is beginning to be played out…. Illegal downloads aren’t their biggest problem, the fact that they don’t control the distribution of their own product is. As artists begin to realize that they don’t need record companies and can just send their tunes to Apple, or Amazon, or Google to sell (hell and even promote), it’ll be game over…..
Who defines what is a 'pirate' site?
According to some, TechDirt or TorrentFreak are pirate sites. Yet they have no pirated content, just news.
What?
You are not doing anything about my hunger by giving me a fishing pole!
FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.
Besides that Google is up to its usual tricks: “But the BPI claims the firm is not keeping its promise to make it harder to find illegal download sites.”
Re: FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.
Yes, because it’s SO easy to know what’s legal and what’s not legal when it comes to downloading stuff.
Re: Re: FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.
It’s easy. Just look for the evil bit.
Problem solved.
Re: FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.
You’re an idiot.
That’s all.
Re: FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.
Yeah, because the record labels never identify perfectly legal works as infringing and take out entire sections of the internet as a result, right? Right? Oh…
Re: FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.
“FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.”
Actually no, it is NOT a false alternative. And while doing both may be the right course, only one is actually the superior option. Namely, give the people a legal alternative. Which is what Google is trying to do. Currently there is no version of Play Music outside of the United States, which means that is one less legal alternative for people to purchase music. And what with Android having over 50% of the smartphone marketshare, it stands to reason that there is a significantly huge potential customer base there.
As for “doing both is the right course”, that’s purely subjective as what is “right” and “wrong” is a personal determination based on a number of things.
Besides that, Google is not up to its usual tricks. It is BPI and others who are up to their usual tricks. They’re attempting to stifle a legal way to get music and in doing so make the illegal alternative the only viable option for people (besides “do without”, which is even stupider because people doing without gains you nothing). As for “not keeping its promise to make it harder to find illegal download sites”, what do you want them to do? Google cannot remove said sites from the internet. The best they can do is remove them from search results, but that opens up a can of worms in the form of since they removed that for this group then eventually they’ll have to remove something else for another group and so on and so forth. Google Search is just that a search device/service. It has no mind or intelligence behind it, it is as non-biased as you can get (well not true, but let’s just say it is for the sake of argument). And Google has made it harder to find illegal download sites, what they haven’t done though is created a technology that keeps people from WANTING to search for such sites, and as long as legal options are limited then the people will keep using the illegal ones. Basically, stop being a douche and give the people what they fucking want. Or don’t, but you lose the right to bitch if you aren’t at least attempting to meet the people halfway.
Re: Re: FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.
Well said. That’s the point I was trying to make.
The whole distraction of bringing search results in the discussion is just that, a distraction from the real issue.
Re: Re: FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.
Well said. That’s the point I was trying to make.
The whole distraction of bringing search results in the discussion is just that, a distraction from the real issue.
Re: FALSE ALTERNATIVE! Doing both is the right course.
I actually look forward to your comments because, when you are not being insulting, you seem to have reasonable rebuttals/comments. Still, you let yourself fall in to the pit of personal attacks and ruin your point. I remain hopeful that you’ll participate without the personal attacks.
With all of that said, Google is just a search engine and far from the only one. It’s just the one that provides the best service. I think the whole Google attack is really just a good distraction from the real issue, lack of useful and competitive legal services for music/movies. The more legal offerings there are, easier to find and competitively priced, I suspect that all associate parties would be making buckets of cash. I know I distrust any pirated material due to possible poor quality and associated malware. I enjoy and appreciate having legal ways of getting quality material. Of course, the DRM fiasco that hurts paying customers is another senseless battle but that’s not this discussion.
So, I honestly think that dragging any search engine in to the discussion is simply a way of muddying the real issue of where to get legal resources.
Cheers
By what magic is Google meant to identify pirated content, or does the music industry consider all music available online as infringing?
Re: Re:
Probably anything featuring the word ‘torrent’ even though bittorrent is a neutral technology just like all technology. That seems to be a concept that the BPI are incapable of grasping.
Re: Re: Re:
What about the non-torrent sources of infringing stuff?
The IP cartels and the government established mainstream media are not just interested in stopping piracy. They want to stop competition altogether. These services offer competing content creators an opportunity to compete in the market place and you can’t have that. That’s why services that followed DMCA takedown notices were shut down for no good reason, like Megaupload, among many many others. Independent performers are even deterred from performing independent acts at restaurants and other venues because these venues must pay a licensing fee under the pretext that someone ‘might’ infringe and so many venues won’t host independent performers and music. Bakeries are even afraid of allowing children to create custom drawings on their birthday cakes due to threats of getting sued by the IP cartels if a kid infringes by drawing a picture of spongebob or something.
This doesn’t help creativity, it only harms it. It doesn’t help the artists, it only helps the middlemen. It harms the artists, it harms creativity, and it harms the public. Only the parasite worthless middlemen, that contribute absolutely nothing of value, benefit.
IP laws need to be thrown out, viciously. and government established broadcasting and cableco monopolies must also be destroyed. These people have destroyed our society for personal gain and we need to fix that.
Re: Re:
I wonder what all those artists who support the shutting down of those sites have to say about the fact that their own peers use it to promote their work.
To be fair...
Google Play Music is not a music streaming service in the sense that something like spotify is, well at lest not currently in the UK as far as I’m aware given I’ve only just started using it. You can only stream content you buy on play or upload your self and there is no resection on what you can upload.
I find it a bit odd that google would talk about this service as a way to wipe out piracy on their devices. Such a service is a perfect way to reduce piracy but offering an awesome legal service but so long as users can upload what they like people will just dump what every they have on there. Which for a lot of people will include some infringing content.
Thing is that google doesn’t have to care about that since it’s not making pirated music available to any one but the person who pirated it and is not doing anything with that music that the user couldn’t easily do them self’s.
So whats google going to do? A crap load of time and money trying to stop or track pirated content on the service, which it seems like they have no obligation to do?
Doing that would seem likely to turn people away exactly the kind of people that it would be in both googles and the recording industries interest to attract to the service.
Re: To be fair...
Nobody’s going to pay to download shit they already have pirated. But giving someone a convenient place to throw up all their pirated/nonpirated shit that can be accessed from anywhere that they can purchase music directly into seems like a good idea to me. My music library on my home computer is a lot of rips of CDs I actually own and maybe a few dozen things I downloaded. I’m not paying for any of them again. Never. Ever. But if I could throw them up on to this service and then I could buy more (reasonably priced) music straight into this library that I can access from anywhere, I would probably buy more music. And that’s what they want, right? People buying music. Nobody’s going to pay for shit they already have.
Re: Re: To be fair...
… But I already bought the anime that i torrented..
Re: Re: To be fair...
“Nobody’s going to pay to download shit they already have pirated.”
Patently untrue. I download episodes of a few US TV shows as they are shown in the US and when the DVD comes out I will delete my downloaded stuff and buy the DVD.
Re: Re: Re: To be fair...
Same here. My Steam library is full of games whose copyright I infringed first, then paid for. A friend copied onto one of my hard drives the entire Battlestar Galactica series, then I went out and got it on Blu-ray.
Re: Re: To be fair...
Yep but that runs counter to the idea that play is about stamping out piracy…. but then again I can’t actually find a source where google say that now I’ve gone looking. I was trying to find the context in which it was said but I can’t find the quote.
The closet I can find is from the link
“I think that is something that is hopefully going to make piracy obsolete because it’s so easy to operate within the bounds of the law that there is really no need to go beyond them”
Which is a very different thing and does not actually imply that the service is actively seeking to stop piracy when doing so would be harmful to the end goal of getting people to pay for music in the future.
Re: Re: Re: To be fair...
That was more or less my point.
Re: Re: To be fair...
Nobody’s going to pay to download shit they already have pirated
And anyone with an IQ would know that’s bullshit.
Re: Re: Re: To be fair...
Maybe you could explain why they would.
Here’s an interesting thought experiment. How much extra money could the Recording Industry earn if Google could somehow remove all links to infringing files?
First, you have to figure out how many file sharers use Google as their exclusive source for finding infringing files. I’ll go ahead and be nice and say 10% (although my gut says it’s probably closer to 0%–’cause really, how many people use just Google for anything?). Now, of that 10% how many would not know how to go to one of the many other search engines or other sites out there to find files? Again, I’ll be nice and say 10% (although again, probably closer to 0%). And finally, how many of that last 10% will actually go out and spend money for their music? Just to make it easy, I’ll go with 10% again (although again, probably closer to 0%). Now let’s calculate how much extra money that would make for the Recording Industry. I’ll be nice and use the highest number I could find on the RIAA’s own FAQ, wich is “$20 billion worth of digitally pirated recorded music.” anually (although looking at all the other quoted numbers from different studies in that FAQ, it doesn’t add up–but I’ll just go with it). So, 10% of $20 billion equals $200 million, and 10% of $200 million is $2 million. And of that $2 million, how much should go to the labels? The number I found was they get 63% of a CD sale, so let’s go with that. 63% of $2 million is $1.26 million. Really? Google should go to all that work just to make you $1.26 million? That don’t make no sense. That wouldn’t even cover one Record Label CEO’s yearly cash bonus (not even counting salary and stock options). Why can’t Google just give you $1.26 million and say STFU (that would probably be cheaper for them than implementing some kind of Magic-Anti-Dirty-Stinking-Filthy-Pirate-Thingiemabob?)?
Now, how much revenue can a new music service bring in? Let’s look at streaming service like Spotify. Its deal with the Recording Industry is $200 million or 75% of total revenue (whichever is higher) per year.
If it were me, I’d rather have a new music service start up and get popular than to gain a measly $1.26 million any day of the week.
Techdirt has written before about the self-destructive vindictiveness of the copyright industries, which would rather die in a futile attempt to stamp out piracy than embrace new ways of making money that will help to reduce piracy anyway.
At this point, I don’t think whether they embrace new business models or not is going to make any difference for them or not. I, for example, won’t be buying products from many of these companies/industries (been boycotting anything Sony for about five years now, and UMG for about 2) under any circumstances, and I know an increasing number of people who are doing the same.
We actively search out alternative products, promote those products among ourselves, and actively share those discoveries with others as we find them. And most of us have enough existing content that we can afford to be particular about what new content we wish to add.
And once piracy is reduced and becomes less of a factor, Prince can start putting out new music again. Yaaaay!