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Saturday, March 23rd, 2019
| Time | Event |
| 10:55a | Google Unlocked Aims to ‘Uncensor’ Google Search Results
As reported here on TF last week, those requests have now reached astronomic levels – four billion links reported by 168,180 copyright holders against 2,283,811 separate domains. Google honors most of the requests but rejects a fair few too, often due to the reported activity not actually being copyright infringement. However, when links are removed, users are informed of the fact via a note at the bottom of Google’s search results.  As the image above shows, when results are removed the associated DMCA notice which caused the removal can be found on the LumenDatabase, the online repository where some Internet companies file complaints for transparency purposes. Anyone can click through and view the notices for themselves but this can be time-consuming, especially when researching a large number of links. It’s a problem the folks at ibit tried to solve this week with the release of a new browser extension. Compatible with Chrome and Opera, Google Unlocked is open source and available via its Github repo. Its developer offers this simple introduction. “The extension scans hidden links that were censored on Google search results due to complaints. The tool scans those complaints and extracts the links from them, puts the links back into Google results, all in TF tested the extension (which isn’t available on the Chrome store) with a clean Opera install and found that it only asks for minimal permission to access Google domains, something confirmed by its developer. “Please take a look at the code on Github, it is just a “It only needs permission to access www.google.* domains so that it can inject the missing links back in the page. Under the hood, the extension checks the Google results for the word “complaint” and fetches the URL behind it with a simple XMLHttpRequest. It then parses those URLs and puts them back on the same page.” Since by its very nature the tool searches for allegedly infringing links, we aren’t going to demonstrate those here. Safe to say, however, the tool does scan LumenDatabase as advertised and all the removed links do get embedded in the search result page itself, very large numbers of links in some instances. However, we also discovered that Google Unlocked is helpful when researching invalid DMCA notices too, but that (and indeed its ability to concisely display URLs from legitimate takedown complaints) then uncovers a flaw in the system, one that cannot be solved easily – if at all. Readers will perhaps recall that a poet by the name of Shaun Shane issued a heap of false DMCA notices against sites (this one included) that legitimately reported on his efforts to stop people writing about his poem. So, for fun, we typed the phrase “If only our tongues were made of glass” into Google, which informed us that a single result had been removed. However, after pressing the Google Unlocked button, we were confronted with eight URLs injected by the extension, as shown below.  While these are indeed all of the URLs present in the notice advised by Google under the “read the DMCA complaint” link provided, most of them were either rejected by Google or are actually legitimate links provided by Shaun Shane himself. Most DMCA notices filed with the company also include locations where the original source material can be found, so these are also parsed by Google Unlocked and presented as removed content, as the image below illustrates.  So, while Google Unlocked is very capable when it comes to ‘reinstating’ links removed by Google following a copyright complaint, it has some of the same issues suffered by many anti-piracy crawlers – it simply cannot differentiate between infringing and non-infringing content. Given the simplicity of the extension and the complexity of the situation, this is not a problem Google Unlocked will ever be able to completely solve. So, while it does work as advertised in many scenarios, the reinstated URLs will nearly always contain links pointing to legitimate sources or links that Google has thrown out due to them being non-infringing. That being said, Google Unlocked’s developer is inviting others to contribute to this interesting project, which may improve its performance over time. “I put the source on Github and I hope to get more programmers to do pull requests to keep the extension up to date, since I know a lot of geeks will love this extension,” he concludes. Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. |
| 8:24p | The U.S. Remains Top Traffic Source For Pirate Sites, Research Shows
These efforts have been quite successful and decreased the number of visits to pirate sites, according to the MPAA. On Hollywood’s home turf, however, pirate sites remain freely accessible. This is peculiar, not least because the United States remains the prime traffic source for many of these sites. New research released by piracy tracking outfit MUSO confirms this once again. Drawing on data from tens of thousands of the largest global piracy sites, the company found that the United States is the country that sends most visitors to pirate sites. With well over 17 billion ‘visits’ the U.S. takes the lead ahead of Russia, Brazil, India, France, and Turkey. The top ten is completed by Ukraine, Indonesia, the UK, and Germany.  That the U.S. is the top source doesn’t come as a surprise. The country has one of the largest populations in the world and is relatively well-connected. Based on the number of visits per Internet user, the list would obviously be different. Looking at the broader picture MUSO reveals that visits to pirate sites have dipped slightly, from over 206 billion in 2017 to less than 190 billion a year later. This downward trend applies across the board and affects torrent, streaming, download, and stream-ripping sites.  Streaming sites remain by far the most popular. More than half of all pirate site visits went to streaming platforms. Direct download sites come in second place with 22% and public torrent sites are in third, with around 13% of all visits. Stream-ripping portals, which are generally seen as the most severe threat to the music industry, make up ‘only’ 4% of the total volume of pirate site traffic, which equates to 7.7 billion visits. It has to be noted though, that stream rippers, as well as the other sites, can have legal uses as well. Looking at the various types of pirated content, TV remains the most popular. Close to half of all pirate site visits were related to TV content, followed at a distance by movies, music, publishing, and software respectively. According to Andy Chatterley, MUSO’s CEO and co-founder, the fragmentation in the TV industry is one of the reasons why piracy remains relevant. People often need a variety of subscriptions to see all the shows they want. “Digital piracy is still prevalent globally. Television is the most popular content for piracy and given the fragmentation of content across multiple streaming services perhaps this isn’t surprising,” Chatterley says. MUSO sees the massive pirate audience as an opportunity for rightsholders, instead of it being just a threat. Understanding when and what people pirate can help the entertainment industry to convert pirates into paying customers. “Whilst it’s important to restrict the distribution of unlicensed content, there is a wealth of insight to be garnered from piracy audience data that gives a comprehensive view of global content consumption.” One final data point that’s worth mentioning relates to search engines. MUSO notes that, compared to the year before, more people bypass search engines and visited pirate sites directly in 2018. Fewer search engine referrals may be a sign that takedown notices are working, perhaps in combination with Google’s downranking strategy. However, people can still find their way to pirate sites. “Simply focussing on take-downs is clearly a whack-a-mole approach and, while an essential part of any content protection strategy, it needs to be paired with more progressive thinking. With the right mindsight, piracy audiences can offer huge value to rights holders,” Chatterley notes. While the data offers an intriguing insight into the piracy landscape, it only covers part of it. Many people use streaming boxes or mobile apps nowadays. These are not included in MUSO’s dataset, which relies on data provided by SimilarWeb, among other sources. MUSO’s dataset covers visits to pirate sites only, which isn’t an exact science it appears. Last year the company reported that there were roughly 300 billion pirate site visits in 2017. This number has now been readjusted to 206 billion. According to MUSO, this is because one of their data providers significantly scaled down mobile visit estimations. In any case, the relative comparisons and broader trends remain the same, and the United States still has more pirate site visits than any other country in the world. Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. |
For many years, Google has been bombarded with requests from copyright holders to remove allegedly-infringing content from its indexes.
U.S music and movie industry companies have exported their pirate site blocking scheme to countries | << Previous Day |
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