Copyright Talk

Newspapers and magazines are, as a rule, diligent about ensuring that the material they publish does not infringe anyone’s copyright. Print media generally approach the question of copyright with a “don’t publish unless you’re sure” attitude. Google, on the other hand, is diligent about “unpublishing” infringing material, IF the copyright owner notifies them. They do not, as a general rule, inquire into or verify that a person uploading material to their site actually has the right to do so.

Why is there a difference? Partly, the difference is a result of a law, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), that is aimed at digital publishing. The DMCA was created in response to issues that arose surrounding the use of bulletin boards and chat rooms in the early days of the internet. The DMCA was created largely before the Google and YouTube style business models that are based on user-generated content in a way far beyond the original bulletin board concept, came into existence. However, so far Google has asserted that the DMCA, with it’s “don’t ask unless someone brings it up” approach, applies to it’s pages.

Google, the one time darling of just about everyone, has been taking more and more heat for their business tactics. Now, a small non-profit ethics group is taking Google to task before Congress. What I find most interesting about the group’s approach is the way they found several hundred pirated movies on the Google site - they hired an 18 year old student for a week at ten dollars an hour.

I have long felt some sympathy for these internet giants who have provided an outlet for the creative talents and interests of literally millions of ordinary people all over the world. I’ve tended to think that the technology that allows that to happen also means that it is not economically feasible to have actual people, with actual eyes and ears, that can review all the submissions. The pros of better content review versus the cons of bottlenecking a service that I think is extremely valuable have seemed to me to be difficult to balance. But I don’t think so now. Even a relatively small staff of internet surfers could drastically cut the numbers of pirated videos being posted. And Google can easily afford more than a small staff to do that work. What a great part-time work-at-home job this would be! Not only major studios, but independent filmmakers would benefit from this as well.

Google ethics are seriously failing the “smell” test.