I mentioned in my previous blog post about a recent paper by Martin Schruers which has been making headlines around the internet. Due to the fact that I could not find the article, the previous blog was based on the opinions I made through reading what the others had to say. I can now happily say that I have actually found the article, it is accessible in PDF format here from CCIA’s official website and can make a post on my opinions of the paper.
The paper starts by offering interesting background to the whole debacle of search engines promoting piracy. Section 512 of the U.S Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 originally limited the liability of search engines for presenting piracy related websites. However with the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, which died on the floor of the House of Representatives as a Bill in early 2012, the debate has been rekindled.
In fact, in 2013 the RIAA called out search engines (particularly Google) for not sufficiently demoting piracy related websites from certain search results particularly when the terms “mp3” and “download” are included in the search. Schruers interestingly enough argues that the RIAA’s view is misplaced mostly because the terms like “mp3” and “download” are hardly used in comparison to simple searches of the name of artists and their music tracks. Schruers backs this up by presenting a graphical comparison search trends of the name of artists and/or tracks with the trends of searches which have the name of artists and/or their tracks with the terms “download” and “mp3” attached to them.
Schruer then goes on to conclude that the better alternative to forcing search engines on demoting piracy is to put the onus on the licensees and licensors of the content to promote legitimate sources on the search engines. This could include having searches which have “download” and’/or “mp3” result in legitimate searches.
If I haven’t mentioned it before, Shruer’s article is well worth the read. It kind of seems to me like the RIAA is making mountain out of mole hills. His suggestion to put the onus on the licensees and licensor’s is practical, and will probably happen down the road. I say this, only because we have not been seeing a rapid increase in the amount of legal licensees. Spotify now has to worry about Google’s new streaming service, which has already launched, along with Apple’s upcoming streaming service. With all this competition is going to have these companies fighting for a spot on the first page of search engines.
Sources:
Link to Michael Schruer’s article:
http://www.ccianet.org/CCIA/files/ccLibraryFiles/Filename/000000000821/CCIA_TheSearchFixation%20%282%29.pdf
