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RIAA Can't Figure Out Google's Takedown Tools; Blames Google

Failures

from the pebkac dept

Fri, Jun 1st 2012 10:36am -

With the release of Google’s copyright transparency report recently, which helped highlight some astoundingly stupid DMCA takedown notices — including a few from the RIAA — you just knew the RIAA would have to lash out in response. But the question was what angle would it take. Now we know: it’s simply making things up.

The RIAA put up a blog post in which it listed out “five facts” to attack Google’s transparency report claims. Except, this is RIAA math. If you actually read the “facts” you realize they’re basically two points repeated over and over again: (1) Google limits how many searches they can do to find infringing material. (2) Google limits how many infringing domains it can report via its Webmaster tools.

There’s a big problem with both of those claims (beyond the fact that “two” does not equal “five”). It’s that neither “fact” appears to be really accurate. Google does have some tools that limit crawlers from automated searches, and perhaps the RIAA has been using such tools to try to find infringement. That would certainly explain its decision to DMCA reviews from media sites of musicians, or official release videos from artists’ own accounts. Of course, that would also subject the RIAA to claims of falsifying DMCA notices, since they have to swear that they have a good faith belief that there really is infringing material on those sites, and they can’t do that if they don’t actually look at them.

As for the limits on submissions, well, as Ars Technica points out the only “limit” appears to be how many URLs can be submitted in a single submission. That seems to be 1,000 per shot:


But there’s no indication that you can’t just go back and then list out the next 1,000. There may be a few other safeguards within a separate program that Google has with “trusted” partners, but even then it appears to just be how many URLs can be submitted in a single batch, rather than a total limit. In fact, as Google told SearchEngineLand, the RIAA is simply wrong, and there are no actual restrictions besides how many URLs can be submitted at once:

We have never imposed any limit on the number of DMCA notices that a copyright owner or reporting organization may send us, although we do have some technical safeguards in our trusted partner program (where submitters may be using automated mechanisms to send large volumes) as a safeguard against accidental flooding of the system.

And if you need any more proof that the RIAA is completely full of it, you just need to look at Google’s own transparency report, where it shows that Microsoft filed more than five times as many DMCA takedowns as the RIAA and NBC Universal filed twice as many:


It seems that even if there was “a limit”, which there does not appear to be, then the RIAA is not coming anywhere close to that limit anyway.

In other words, we can sum up the RIAA’s complaint about Google’s copyright transparency report as being “the transparency report is wrong, because we’re clueless about how to work your tools.” Given the RIAA’s general (lack of) understanding about technology, perhaps that’s not too surprising. But it is amusing to see them so stringently and publicly display their ignorance.

Filed Under: , ,
Companies: google, riaa

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Comments on “RIAA Can't Figure Out Google's Takedown Tools; Blames Google”

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84 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

Actually, Google should on April 1st should have a “Click HERE to stop piracy” button.

When you click it a message pops up “Piracy has been stopped!”

Then two seconds later a message pops up “Oh noes! They’ve figured a way to work around our measure! Click the button!”

Repeat as necessary.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

And that they can’t find more infringing material on any given site because google limits the number of searches they can do per day. Which makes a lot of sense, because there are no other search engines besides google and everyone knows that it’s impossible to access a site without having gone through google first.

Chris Brand says:

"Good faith belief"

“they have to swear that they have a good faith belief that there really is infringing material on those sites, and they can’t do that if they don’t actually look at them.”

Hmmm. I’m not completely convinced by this. I could have a “good faith belief” in something based on a two-stage process. Something like “the software told me so” plus “the software is carefully written, has been well-tested, and has always been right in the past”. Of course, you would need *both* parts, not just the first.

Rikuo (profile) says:

Re: "Good faith belief"

Not a chance in hell. There is no way saying the “software told me so” would ever be accepted by a judge. Good faith belief requires that a human has checked and swears that the link is infringing.
Software is just code. It has no belief in anything, therefore it cannot say it has good faith on whether something is infringing on copyright.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: "Good faith belief"

Since when has a piece of code been made a person in legal eyes? Meaning: There has to be someone accountable for the actions of the program.
“The software told me so” is 100% falling back on some person.

Also, the proof that the program will almost never make any errors is quite a task to provide. If you do know of systematic errors of any kind in the code or lack of safety towards certain legal uses (This is actually more or less impossible to avoid to some extend!), the program should not be able to be accepted as sufficient to have “good faith”.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: "Good faith belief"

They only need to roll out stats showing that they have spotting tens of million of infringing URLs, and that the vast majority of them have been confirmed as right. There is no requirement here for absolute certainty, just a reasonable belief. That’s not much.

You will rarely see actual stats about the hit to miss ratio for larger organizations, most of them probably do a very good job, and get mostly tripped up by dynamic pages and shifting URLs.

Karl (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: "Good faith belief"

You will rarely see actual stats about the hit to miss ratio for larger organizations, most of them probably do a very good job

…or not:

Over half – 57% – of notices sent to Google to demand removal of links in the index were sent by businesses targeting apparent competitors[.]

– Efficient Process or “Chilling Effects”? (PDF)

dynamic pages and shifting URLs

…which are not indexed by most search engines. (It’s why Apache has mod_rewrite.)

New Mexico Mark says:

Re: Re:

I’m betting on this scenario:

Google actually had posted a wonderful video on YouTube explaining in detail how to use these tools. Unfortunately, someone had turned on a radio in the background for two seconds toward the beginning of the training video and the audio was captured on the recording. The RIAA started to watch the training video, but just by reflex they issued a takedown notice as soon as they heard the music (but way before the fat lady sang) and that was that.

Lowestofthekeys (profile) says:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2181693/riaa-tackles-google-piracy-takedowns

It all gets a big ‘whatever’ from Google, where these claims have been routinely dismissed. “We have never imposed any limit on the number of DMCA notices that a copyright owner or reporting organisation may send us,” said a spokesperson, with the suggestion that in some cases the system can be flooded with requests from rightsholders.
“We do have some technical safeguards in our trusted partner program (where submitters may be using automated mechanisms to send large volumes) as a safeguard against accidental flooding of the system.”

Maybe if the RIAA were more careful with the amount of requests they issue, it wouldn’t be such a problem.

Anonymous Coward says:

given how clueless the RIAA obviously are with modern technology at Google (that was probably designed specifically for them, given the constant whining they do over illegal searches and downloading etc) to save themselves looking, if possible, even more stupid and achieve at the same time what they have been trying to for years, why dont they design and launch their own internet? they can have it do exactly what they want, they can have it look exactly how they want, they can allow on to it exactly who they want, when they want and, most importantly of all, they can have those they have allowed on to it to download only what they have been told they can. think of the shit that is going to stop everyone else getting and the amount of money they keep insisting they are losing from being lost. if that doesn’t change, at least they will know exactly who was doing what and when!! no charges against printers or dead people for spoofing an IP address either!!

Anonymous Coward says:

Actually, I think they have a point.

Google shouldn’t have any limits on DMCA reporting, the law does not allow. There is no indication from the screen shots that the 1000 is repeatable from the same account, nor that it would not just remove the previous 1000 reported and replace it with the new ones (effectively killing the process).

Limiting searches would also seem to be a very nice way to support piracy, making it harder for rights owners to search Google for infringing material.

You can make fun of them all you like, but perhaps it would be better if you sat down and just tried to figure out how fucking huge their job is, and why Google being gently obstructionist is a pain in the ass for them.

Chosen Reject (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Even you went too far to show that the RIAA is lying. This links to the RIAA’s own page on Google’s new transparency reports. There are four important numbers. Their median per week is 5 requests for 4,234 urls. So on average per week they aren’t sending 1,000 urls per request. Total requests are 486 but only 443,906 urls, so once again they aren’t even getting to the limit of 1,000 urls per request.

They can’t complain about a limit when on average they are shy of the limit by nearly 10%.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

I see your point and for a moment, seriously thought about it.

And then remember all of the John Doe warrant requests on IP addresses and decided that they wanted to make the ISP’s and courts do that job for them too. Not to mention the grandmothers and other blameless people that were crucified by those meaningless charges.

So, I finally decided that if the RIAA needed better VOLUNTARY assistance, maybe another search engine would do one for them. What’s a good limit by the way? 1000 at a pop? 10000? 100000? Seems to me that from a coding verification level, you would want some limit on each single use.

All in all, nice try but, I not buying.

weneedhelp (profile) says:

Re: Re:

“You can make fun of them all you like, but perhaps it would be better if you sat down and just tried to figure out how fucking huge their job is, and why Google being gently obstructionist is a pain in the ass for them.”

You can make fun of them all you like, but perhaps it would be better if YOU sat down and just tried to figure out how fucking huge Google’s’ job is, and why the RIAA is a huge pain in the ass for them.

FTFY

Josh in CharlotteNC (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Actually following the law?

So you’re saying Google is breaking the law by providing tools that make it easier for the RIAA to submit DMCA take down requests? They are breaking the law when they then review and remove the link from their index?

If you’re not saying that, please be specific in what laws they are breaking and under what circumstances. I’m dying to hear it.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

And yet, they aren’t even coming remotely close to hitting any of those limits… which is a huge point you’re missing.

Yes, there may be a limit, but despite their outcry over the limit and their outcry over how huge a problem piracy is and oh woe is them… somehow, despite all their bitching about how no one is wanting to help them all, despite all the tools available at their disposal, and all the tools they want made in the future, and all the tools they’ve abused that were custom tailored to suit their needs… they ARE NOT even remotely making an effort on their own part to help others help them.

They are literally the most entitled people on the planet. They bitch about a problem that has arisen from their own inability to change or even want to meet the demands of changing markets, they push for a specific law to enable them to have things taken down, they push for specific tools to allow them to benefit from the law they themselves pushed for and DESPITE all this they refuse to even try and do anything about the problem. Other than act like whiny little bitches. They literally want everyone else to foot the bill for their perceived problem (regarding enforcement), they want others to do the work (also regarding enforcement and takedowns) and so on and so forth.

We will indeed keep making fun of them all we like. Why? Because they are a group who deserves to be made fun of. Not only are they hypocrites, they are lazy hypocrites with a bigger sense of entitlement than even the worst pirates.

And it’s funny you say “Google shouldn’t have any limits on DMCA reporting, the law does not allow”. Really? Google is one of the companies who has gone above and beyond what is required by the law, yet you still find reason to complain? Sheesh. Would you like to share with the class what exactly everyone and their mothers need to do (except the RIAA and the studios and the labels… because why should they do any work or make any change themselvse) to make you and them (the previously mentioned) happy? Is it a magical “stop all piracy” button? Maybe worldwide genocide (so if we’re all dead, none of us can pirate)? I’m legitimately curious. I honestly can say whatever you say will be ridiculous and I’ll laugh out loud at, but I’d like to hear it anyway. Because I’m just a nice guy like that. : )

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

“Google shouldn’t have any limits on DMCA reporting, the law does not allow. There is no indication from the screen shots that the 1000 is repeatable from the same account, nor that it would not just remove the previous 1000 reported and replace it with the new ones (effectively killing the process).”

The math doesn’t work on these assumptions. RIAA submitted 443,738 over the past year. If they were capped a 1000 per day, then that number couldn’t be higher than 365,000.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

What you are claiming is that you haven’t seen proof that Google is not doing anything wrong, when RIAA has not brought even the slightest proof to back their mud slinging…

Guilty ’till you have proven that noone can rightfully claim that there is a problem is just a disgusting dictatorial way of thinking. You should be ahamed of yourself.

Jeremy2020 (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Technology is difficult to understand. If the RIAA wants to develop new database technology that doesn’t suffer from limits, give it a license that allows free use then we can talk.

Also, reading or looking into the issue is good. Google said in blatant terms, there is no limit. You can only add 1000 at a time to prevent the system from getting flooded and breaking down. You can submit 1000 as many times as you want.

Google limits all automated searches to prevent abuse. Any competent IT person limits things like e-mail login attempts, connections, etc etc to prevent systems from being abused.

Your understanding of basic IT needs an upgrade.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

“Google shouldn’t have any limits on DMCA reporting, the law does not allow. There is no indication from the screen shots that the 1000 is repeatable from the same account, nor that it would not just remove the previous 1000 reported and replace it with the new ones (effectively killing the process).”

Thats just it bub, there is no law specifically to this situation, there is no law saying google cant limit DCMA takedowns to 1000 a pop, and there is no law that says that they are required by law, google has every right by your logic, because there is in fact no law right now specific for one way or the other.

And last time i checked, RIAA doesnt create the laws in your country, or am i wrong on that one?

Now your probably thinking, we should know that this is the right thing to do, and the only reason someone would say otherwise is if their pirates, or, (for the more open minded ones, of your kin folk), POSSIBLE pirates.

We’re just trying to protect our way of life, right.
Absolutely, but piracy is way, way, waaaay down on that LIST, what we want is the right to be heard, that goes for you too bub, and through THAT right, we have the OPPORTUNITY to add our voices to the things we feel is’nt right, ESPECIALLY, when seing something we feel strongly about having no opposing voice, i mean none whatsoever

People vs Government vs, or, and Corporations

We’re in a three legged race, everyones fighting for who has the most rights, and in most cases, for one to gain a right, another must loose it, guess whos been picked to lose em

Karl (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Google shouldn’t have any limits on DMCA reporting, the law does not allow.

Just so you know, this is completely false. Companies may place limits on DMCA notices all they want.

In fact, companies are not required to go through the DMCA process at all. It is completely voluntary. The only thing you gain from following the DMCA, is automatic immunity from secondary liability. On the other hand, if you don’t follow the DMCA process, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re liable for infringement.

Does placing a limit on the number of requests mean you didn’t follow the DMCA? Don’t know – there’s no mention of it in the statutes. If that limit is there for technical reasons (e.g. to keep your database from crashing), then almost certainly it wouldn’t. But even if it does, it’s doubtful that any judge would find you liable in any case.

Of course, that’s all moot, since Google only caps the number of takedown requests per form, and you can submit multiple forms per day.

Karl (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Does placing a limit on the number of requests mean you didn’t follow the DMCA? Don’t know – there’s no mention of it in the statutes.

Oops, my bad. It turns out that if those limitations are there for technical reasons, the service provider absolutely is covered under the DMCA. It’s in 512(i)(2)(C).

So, you’re completely wrong.

TasMot (profile) says:

Why Issue the DMCA notice to Google at all

It’s a really good thing that Google is the only search engine on the Internet. That way, just issue one DMCA notice to Google and the offending material goes away. Oh wait, Google is not hosting the alleged infringing material, somebody else is. Oh wait, Google is not the only search engine either. So, instead of utilizing Google (oh, wait, using Google is free and you can’t get anything for free, that’s stealing according to RIAA logic), to find the offending sites that contain the alleged infringing material and issuing a DMCA takedown notice to them to remove the infringing material (which would remove it from all the other search engines they are not talking about (like Bing even since Microsoft doesn’t even remove the links for the alleged infringement that they issue DMCA notices to Google for). No, instead lets complain that Google is still finding the alleged infringing material that the RIAA is not getting taken off of some other web site. For heaven’s sake, I don’t EVER want to be the messenger delivering to the RIAA. I bet they have a sign in all the offices, “SHOOT MESSENGERS ON SITE”.

Rabbit80 says:

How about all the millions of new Google links that are added daily are passed to the RIAA for approval? If the link is not approved or rejected within 24hrs they are automatically added. If Google could prevent automated responses, this would cost the RIAA a fortune and see the scale of the problems Google faces dealing with the takedowns.

Wally (profile) says:

Bots

Ok I recall mentioning or predicting bots crawling around to sniff out “infrimgement” on a previous article and I ran that “experiment”. Seems that my comment was taken out that was Titled “Bots” to which another reader had said in response that he could imagine there were DCMA takedown notices on the way.

I seem to not be able to find my comment with the experiment anywhere on this site.

It took 3 days for a DCMA takedown request of my comment which provided absolutely no link:

“Torrent Download The Avengers Free”.
The article here states that Web crawlers and bots being used was the possible reason for such an influx of DCMA takedown notices to google.

So now that we have Disney’s attention, let’s see if I can’t provoke another company under the RIAA……Say Sony BMG

“Download Torrent Michael Jackson Entire Discography Free”

Happy hunting RIAA 😛

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