In the recent Pirate Bay Trial, which the defendants “lost”, the argument was frequently made that The Pirate Bay does nothing more than Google: they post links to stuff, some of which happens to infringe upon copyright, but they don’t have a lot of control over what links are in their database. The Pirate Bay just happened to be completely disinterested in removing any links to anything that wasn’t a virus. It’s techically not illegal, which is why their conviction is such an outrage, and why Google does pretty much the same thing. To drive that point home in protest of this silliness, The Pirate Google has appeared.
It’s nothing more than a Google Custom Search which adds “filetype:torrent” to the end of each query, which is doable on regular Google searches as well. Even if The Pirate Google is taken down by someone or other, that functionality will still be available in Google. Of course, given Google’s track record of being a pussy when it comes to defending themselves against Big IP Whoring (because “Big Entertainment” is kind of a stretch), it’s possible that this won’t last. Or it could catalyze Google’s growth of a spine.
Google could “tweak its algorithms” to not allow .torrent files to be indexed (in which case the file extension .tor will come into use, and then .bittorrent when that gets blocked, and so on). That’s not likely, as BitTorrent is mostly used to distribute legitimate, legal files that happen to be gigantic. There’s even an entire BitTorrent tracker devoted to such things. Google knows this, and won’t compromise its mission to index the web. They’re more likely to manually de-index any illegal links that get reported to them by the Big Whores, essentially engaging in an arms race with pirate SEO experts.
Or they could prove the lunatic conspiracy theorists right and report to the rights-whores who’s doing searches for “filetype:torrent” and stuff. That would be scary, but it’s also unlikely that Google will do that, because it would be proving the lunatic conspiracy theorists right. That sort of thing would kill Google’s credibility forever, and people might actually switch to Cuil. That fact alone all but assures that this isn’t going to happen.
So perhaps the Big Whores will go after Google, and Google, unable to compromise, will finally give them the middle finger of common sense in court. And/or the Big Whores will kick their lawsuit habit, detox in rehab, and come back out with an intelligent business model not involving copyright abuse. Either way, it’s safe to say that piracy will soon save the entertainment industry from people getting bored of it and going to the park or something.
For now, The Pirate Google can help you find all those movies that aren’t available in HD on iTunes yet. I mean, I’d totally not steal them if I had the option to pay $2 and download them quickly.
Arr, Google Me Timbers
In the recent Pirate Bay Trial, which the defendants “lost”, the argument was frequently made that The Pirate Bay does nothing more than Google: they post links to stuff, some of which happens to infringe upon copyright, but they don’t have a lot of control over what links are in their database. The Pirate Bay just happened to be completely disinterested in removing any links to anything that wasn’t a virus. It’s techically not illegal, which is why their conviction is such an outrage, and why Google does pretty much the same thing. To drive that point home in protest of this silliness, The Pirate Google has appeared.
It’s nothing more than a Google Custom Search which adds “filetype:torrent” to the end of each query, which is doable on regular Google searches as well. Even if The Pirate Google is taken down by someone or other, that functionality will still be available in Google. Of course, given Google’s track record of being a pussy when it comes to defending themselves against Big IP Whoring (because “Big Entertainment” is kind of a stretch), it’s possible that this won’t last. Or it could catalyze Google’s growth of a spine.
Google could “tweak its algorithms” to not allow .torrent files to be indexed (in which case the file extension .tor will come into use, and then .bittorrent when that gets blocked, and so on). That’s not likely, as BitTorrent is mostly used to distribute legitimate, legal files that happen to be gigantic. There’s even an entire BitTorrent tracker devoted to such things. Google knows this, and won’t compromise its mission to index the web. They’re more likely to manually de-index any illegal links that get reported to them by the Big Whores, essentially engaging in an arms race with pirate SEO experts.
Or they could prove the lunatic conspiracy theorists right and report to the rights-whores who’s doing searches for “filetype:torrent” and stuff. That would be scary, but it’s also unlikely that Google will do that, because it would be proving the lunatic conspiracy theorists right. That sort of thing would kill Google’s credibility forever, and people might actually switch to Cuil. That fact alone all but assures that this isn’t going to happen.
So perhaps the Big Whores will go after Google, and Google, unable to compromise, will finally give them the middle finger of common sense in court. And/or the Big Whores will kick their lawsuit habit, detox in rehab, and come back out with an intelligent business model not involving copyright abuse. Either way, it’s safe to say that piracy will soon save the entertainment industry from people getting bored of it and going to the park or something.
For now, The Pirate Google can help you find all those movies that aren’t available in HD on iTunes yet. I mean, I’d totally not steal them if I had the option to pay $2 and download them quickly.