Search Engines In Russia Will Deindex All Domains That Have 100+ Links To Pirated Content (torrentfreak.com) 49
Major rightsholders and internet companies in Russia have signed a new memorandum of cooperation designed to make pirated movies, TV shows and other content harder to find. In addition to automatically removing reported infringing links within hours, search engines have agreed to completely deindex all domains that carry 100 or more links to infringing content. TorrentFreak reports: Signed in 2018, a memorandum of cooperation signed by major rightsholders and internet companies including Yandex changed the way infringing content is handled. Following the creation of a centralized database of pirated content, the Internet companies agreed to query it every few minutes in order to remove corresponding content from their platforms within six hours. Over a period of three years, more than 40 million infringing links have now been removed from search results. Since its introduction, the memorandum has been renewed several times alongside calls for the system to be opened up to a wider range of rightsholders, such as those operating in the publishing sector. While that is yet to happen, a new memorandum has just been signed by the original signatories containing an even more powerful anti-piracy tool.
Under the current agreement (which is set to expire early September 2022), rightsholders must submit specific URLs to infringing content to the centralized database controlled by the Media Communications Union (ISS). These specific URLs are then delisted by search engines but rightsholders complain that the same content can reappear under a new URL, meaning that the process must be repeated. To deal with this type of 'pirate' countermeasure, the new memorandum requires search companies to take more stringent action. Any domain that has 100 or more 'pirate' links reported to the database will be deindexed entirely by search engines, meaning that they essentially become invisible to anyone using a search engine. This must be carried out quickly too, within 24 hours according to ISS. Given the number of links to infringing content posted to non-pirate sites, safeguards will also be introduced to protect legitimate resources from deindexing. These include media sites, government projects, search engines themselves, social networks, and official content providers. "Alongside the development of the memorandum a new law is being drafted, with the aim of enshrining its voluntary terms into local law," adds TorrentFreak. "That should allow other rightsholders that aren't current signatories to obtain similar benefits. At the time of writing, however, progress on the legal front is taking its time and might still take a few more months."
Under the current agreement (which is set to expire early September 2022), rightsholders must submit specific URLs to infringing content to the centralized database controlled by the Media Communications Union (ISS). These specific URLs are then delisted by search engines but rightsholders complain that the same content can reappear under a new URL, meaning that the process must be repeated. To deal with this type of 'pirate' countermeasure, the new memorandum requires search companies to take more stringent action. Any domain that has 100 or more 'pirate' links reported to the database will be deindexed entirely by search engines, meaning that they essentially become invisible to anyone using a search engine. This must be carried out quickly too, within 24 hours according to ISS. Given the number of links to infringing content posted to non-pirate sites, safeguards will also be introduced to protect legitimate resources from deindexing. These include media sites, government projects, search engines themselves, social networks, and official content providers. "Alongside the development of the memorandum a new law is being drafted, with the aim of enshrining its voluntary terms into local law," adds TorrentFreak. "That should allow other rightsholders that aren't current signatories to obtain similar benefits. At the time of writing, however, progress on the legal front is taking its time and might still take a few more months."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Very different to the Great Firewall. In Russia they simply oblige service providers to block stuff via DNS or by de-listing it. In China the Great Firewall actively blocks connections leaving the country.
In Russia if you search for "pirate bay" you won't get hits for thepiratebay.org, but you can still access it directly (might need a 3rd party DNS resolver). In China your connections to bbc.com are simply dropped.
What is their incentive? (Score:3)
Why would a search engine want to of this if it not be under legal pressure to do so? Surely this cannot be a smart move and will loose them customers to a search engine outside of Russia which does not comply with this?
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Why would a search engine want to of this
Because it buys them brownie points when someone proposes a law that forces the search engine to do something they don't actually want to. It's not as if you pay them to find pirate content for you.
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I am not sure what the Russian copyright regime is at present need to look it up. Can comment only on the competitive landscape part.
1. The biggest local search engine is also a rights holder (Yandex).
2. The biggest copyright holder has enough resources to annihilate even Google and not just locally, but internationally in court. You do not f*ck with Gasprom when it is gnawing a bone it rightly holds to be its own. Yep, that's the case - the biggest
Re: What is their incentive? (Score:2)
Because the alternative is that they have to respond to "more than 40 million infringing links" every three years. This is just more effective. And as always, it's probably only a few websites that cause 90% of the notice-and-takedown requests.
Russia is a shithole dictatorship (Score:5, Insightful)
Like China, which is also a shithole dictatorship, rest assured the government is more worried about content they consider "subversive" than any copyright claims from the MPAA.
Re: Russia is a shithole dictatorship (Score:2)
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Freedom does mean the right not to be forced to work for others for free.
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try googling for something on the pirate bay.
it's amazing the level of ignorance that some people have - especially people who are talking about countries that are not the U.S.
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I'm not in the US though. Does the US censor TPB? Seems unlikely.
Pirate URL Database (Score:4, Funny)
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Odd seems like the only way (Score:2)
Actually kinda a good idea (Score:1)
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Copyright is piracy (theft)
We just have to decentralize better
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Hear me out -- modern society recognizes piracy as a problem
Piracy hasn't been just recognized piracy as a problem. Piracy has been a problem since ancient times. When ever there has a been cargo shipped on the high seas there has always been those that have been inclined to relieve those of that cargo. There have always been many reasons that would push people to live such a lifestyle on the high seas. Some where drawn to a mythical life of adventure. A few did it for king and country, feeling it was their patriotic duty. Others, like todays pirates, didn't
Not a Bad Idea (Score:2)
As much as I dislike it, that does seem like it would be a pretty good solution. Most of the big piracy places would get squashed. Which I guess is secondary to their goals of being better able to restrict the content their people have access to.
But it seems like it would need work, it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to find 100+ likes of pirated content on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitch.
Weaponize (Score:5, Insightful)
So, if i wanted to shutdown a site with a comment section, wouldn't that give me a way to do that?
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So, if i wanted to shutdown a site with a comment section, wouldn't that give me a way to do that?
If you can keep 100+ copyright infringing links up at a site, then that's what TFA suggests.
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So Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Google, and pretty much any website (including social media sites) with user generated content is going to be delisted?
How about slashdot?
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Done by Google already (Score:3, Insightful)
before some of you dimwits start pushing your anti-russia bullshit...
This kind of thing is already done by Google through DMCA
Searching for my wife's favorite tv show and the piratebay on google results in....
"In response to a complaint that we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at LumenDatabase.org. "
so yeah, fuck off with ignorant narratives....
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I like that google allows you to view the complaint and the urls to the offending links. Makes stuff easy to find!
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It used to, not it doesn't. Instead you need to provide personal details and pretend to be the copyright holder to view it.
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It seems hit or miss for me. I was able to find the original 1974 deathwish movie last night doing it but a few others asked me to do that.
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before some of you dimwits start pushing your anti-russia bullshit...
This kind of thing is already done by Google through DMCA
Searching for my wife's favorite tv show and the piratebay on google results in....
"In response to a complaint that we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at LumenDatabase.org. "
so yeah, fuck off with ignorant narratives....
This is slightly different isn't it.
This has de-indexed the pirate site, not something providing a link to it (unless I misunderstood).
If I put a link to www.piratedFilms.org in 100 slashdot comments, then in Russia this site would be deindexed (I think?). Google would not.
Doesn't seem to be working great (Score:2)
Perhaps this doesn't work in Russia but works for me. https://yandex.ru/search/?lr=1... [yandex.ru]
Do Russians pirate? (Score:2)
How available is Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, etc. in Russia? I am under the impression that some nations depend on pirate sites because the Hollywood cartels geoblock content. Is that no longer an issue in Russia?
Don't use Yandex (Score:1)
Use Yacy [yacy.net], it should be a bit more difficult to shut down, or we could just run our own search bots, from one of those "cloud server" thingies
So, you're going to...self-censor? (Score:3)
"Search Engines In Russia Will Deindex All Domains That Have 100+ Links To Pirated Content"
Given that a lot of pirated content comes from Russia, what exactly is the actual purpose of this? Stopping pirated content, or censoring your internet as you see fit?
(Next Week) Oh, "Pirated" already turned into "Ukraine"? Color me shocked...
Humming... (Score:4, Funny)
Great idea! (Score:2)
Let's also consider THOSE sites pirated content for the purposes of recursion, press the Go button here and...
Wait, where'd the internet go?
RIP archive.org (Score:2)
Google used to be really good at sniffing out and linking to all the pirated content on your site.
If the world were fair, Google and Bing would delist themselves. They're the biggest clearing house for pirated links.
The content harder to find (Score:2)
Observation suggests this means pictures of naked people: Exposed penises are rare outside of porn, which also has naked women. There seems to be fewer naked-female selfies too.
So... (Score:2)
99 it is then (Score:2)
99 links that can change on a regular basis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
And... (Score:2)
have not paid the required kickbacks to Putin's mob.
Like Banning phonebooks (Score:2)
So basically.... (Score:2)
So basically any site with a comment section or that reports on anything close to the topics of piracy, security, or whatnot is dead. As are search engines themselves, and anything with user content that is not strictly and extensively modded by humans.
Good luck with that.
Indirect Links? (Score:2)
So what happens if your favorite pirate website just inserts an intervening page that is denied in robots.txt and blocks bots from visiting? Seems like the pirate sites end up better off since now they get to serve some extra ads on each visit. Also, it's pretty trivial to host those intervening pages on a pure ip address or dynamic domain so you don't technically have 100 links to infringing content on a domain. You could even insert 2 intervening pages.
Ok, but maybe they give content owners some kind o