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posted by Cactus on Wednesday February 26 2014, @05:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't dept.

Fluffeh writes:

According to TorrentFreak, Google is downranking The Pirate Bay's website in its search results for a wide variety of queries, some of which are not linked to copyright-infringing content. Interestingly, the change mostly seems to affect TPB results via the Google.com domain, not other variants such as Google.ca and Google.co.uk.

It also seems that Google may only be downranking searches that are explicitly looking for copyright-infringing content, not searches that are simply looking for The Pirate Bay itself. It will be interesting to see whether this is a backhanded effort to appease the media companies, or a taste of things to come to all the Google domains.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 26 2014, @06:28PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 26 2014, @06:28PM (#7452) Journal

    Simple contradiction in your post: if the industry is dying, then it will die and have no content to pirate, making pirate sites disappear.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NecroDM on Wednesday February 26 2014, @06:45PM

    by NecroDM (376) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @06:45PM (#7464)

    Good point, but it's not the whole industry that's dying but rather the middlemen such as RIAA/MPAA that want to eliminate the threats to their distribution model, ever since it was possible to copy a VHS they've been hell bent on trying to stop people from sharing content. Fortunately others like Netflix understand that people will copy and share either way so why not make it simple to watch a movie and make some money too?

    The problem with MPAA/RIAA is the clinging to a model that no longer makes sense, not since you have broadband internet access, it's human nature to share culture and instead of taking an advantage of that and make it simple to watch a movie online "pirate" sites do this for free and they miss out due to their greed.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Fluffeh on Wednesday February 26 2014, @09:40PM

      by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 26 2014, @09:40PM (#7576) Journal

      middlemen such as RIAA/MPAA that want to eliminate the threats to their distribution model

      That's not entirely true either though. They simply want to have their cake and eat it. They don't have a problem with other people using their content if they pay for it - such as netflix who is now worth over $25 billion! [google.com] but they try to hammer in that each download is a sale lost.

      I agree that they are doing a lot to protect their masters poor business model - but in this case, I would actually blame the actual distributers much more than their guard dogs here. The problem is a business that is simply poorly managed. If the studios want me to buy their stuff, make it fricken available to buy. I have been trying for about four years now to buy a legit copy of Dollhouse [imdb.com] in Australia. It has so far always been "around a year away from release" or so they keep telling my at JBHifi.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 26 2014, @10:53PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @10:53PM (#7607) Journal

      If the (RI|MP)AA don't understand the obsolescence of their business model by now, it is because they refuse to learn. Good lord, it's been what, 15 years since Napster? They still don't understand that the good ship lollipop has sailed? Netflix and iTunes have even gone out of their way to show them a path to continued relevance, much like you would show your developmentally disabled cousin how to tie his shoes for the eightieth time, and they still insist on this nonsense? Would someone, Google, Apple, anyone just buy the entire content industry with the spare change they have rattling around in their pockets and put them out of their misery already? Buy the whole kit and kaboodle and finally bring the film/TV/music production activity current with technology and the ways the kids are consuming it nowadays.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.