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July 02, 2005
BitTorrent Tracker Sites and Google, Hypocracy 101
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal wrote an article entitled "Alerted by Users, Google Removes Free Video Clips."
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Apparently, there was a significant copyright infringment that allowed people to view movies like "The Matrix Revolutions," "The Matrix Reloaded," and "Scarface." Also, TV shows were uploaded including episodes of "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons" and clips from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."
Google Inc. said it removed the copyrighted video clips that Internet users uploaded for its new video-search service without the content owners' permission.
"We take copyright very seriously," said Susan Wojcicki, a Google product-management director. "We have clear policies in place to protect copyrighted material and copyright holders." She said that she was unaware of any complaints by content owners related to the incident and that Google would remove any unauthorized video at the owner's request. (emphasis added)
Side note: we just found another mission for the MPAA; monitor Google Video and tell them when violations occur.
OK, let's think about this from a different angle. A BitTorrent Tracker updates an internal database specializing in the location of both legal and pirated files. It displays these results to users when search requests are received. The result is that many sites are sued into oblivion despite the fact that they do not host the illegal files themselves. Their 'crime' is that they make it too easy to find the copyrighted material on other people's computers.
Google updates an internal database from its search engine spiders and maintains the location information some of which is legal files and others pirated media. It displays these results to users when search requests are received. Google Video now go beyond the BitTorrent sites in that they now also allow people to upload the files for access! But are they sued? No.
Two lessons can be learned here. The MPAA appears to rely upon some form of an 'ignorance factor' amoungst Internet users. Also, It helps to be a huge media company that is worth more than all of Time Warner. When you get that big, even Hollywood does not send the MPAA against you.
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