Entertainment Industy Back To Demanding That Search Engines Censor The Web... Through 'Voluntary' Measures

from the if-at-first,-you-cannot-sopa,-try-try-again dept

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We've pointed out before that the short-term troubles of some legacy media players appears to have more to do with their own mistakes, rather than piracy. But they just keep on lobbying for more laws (none of which have actually worked). We've also pointed out that while defeating SOPA/PIPA was a good thing, the supporters of the bill, undoubtedly, were already hard at work trying to get similar efforts through elsewhere -- however possible. TorrentFreak has news of the IFPI submitting a list of proposals for search engines on how they should run their business -- which includes all sorts of extra efforts designed to help the entertainment industry by magically making it more difficult to find infringing content. I always find the hubris of such demands odd. It's really not proper for the entertainment industry to insist that search engines need to run their businesses in any particular way. In what other business does an entire industry demand a different industry protect them from having to adapt?The recommendations & data themselves don't make much sense. The report claims that search engines send lots of traffic to infringing sites, but we've looked at the data pretty closely and there's no support for what they claim. The data showed that search engines definitely sent some traffic to infringing sites, but it was a very small percentage of their business. It's difficult to accidentally find infringing music to download these days. I realize that the industry claims otherwise, but the methodology there is suspect. They're claiming that if you search on the names of certain songs, unauthorized sites show up relatively high in Google searches. But there isn't evidence that that necessarily leads people to click on those infringing files. As the click-through evidence we saw showed, it's a relatively small percentage of people who do that.While the industry has some good ideas for ways to improve business, blaming the tech industry (or insisting that all of their users act like criminals) has become an all too common refrain around here. It's counterproductive. The tech industry is providing all sorts of useful tools and services for the entertainment industry to thrive. I'm still at a loss as to how blaming the tech industry helps anyone. Punishing them just makes them less willing to design the next iTunes, the next Netflix or the next Spotify.It's time for the industry to start focusing on real business model opportunities... not whining about everyone who it feels the need to punish.

Filed Under: copyright, demands, entertainment industry, search, tech