back to article Copyright Kitemark plan flutters aloft

We first revealed a cunning plan to persuade search engines to "kitemark" serial pirate music websites back in April. Now the Performing Rights Society, which hatched the idea, has talked about it publicly for the first time. The PRS calls it "traffic lights", and the idea is that search engines flag known and persistent …

COMMENTS

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  1. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Pint

    Why bother?

    Why bother, looking at the other big copyright story in the tech news today, it looks like the US media-corps are just going to start abducting people off the streets and transfer them to the US for "re-education", when they knock off the odd MP3 or movie!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Finally an effective system...

    ... to tell where all the good s*** is kept.

    Red light means free!

  3. vic 4
    FAIL

    non-tech majority will think twice about clicking the link

    Hmm, so are they implying tech people steal music?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    "dedicated downloaders probably don't need a search engine"

    Yes...I regularly pull out my cyber hose and jam it past my parted buttocks in order to get the latest episode of house, I never use a search engine, that's just SOOOO 2010.

    Seriously...what is this person on? How can you just magic up a dodgy file without finding it through a search? I know! the "dedicated downloaders" are so smart they can simply guess the URL of the files they want to download.

    1. SuperTim
      Pirate

      i think he means...

      Dedicated downloaders already know where to look ;)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        No they don't

        You do not know what the URL is to download a brand new torrent until you go onto a torrent site (or search site) and do a search (unless you trade them with people, but that doesn't really happen)...therefore you are using a search engine...

        1. ArmanX

          Er...

          If someone new to torrents, or someone with little experience with torrents, were to look for the latest episode of a show, they would Google (or Bing, or Yahoo!, or whatever) for "MyShow torrent". Once the results appeared, they would click on the first link, ending up on whatever torrent search site. However, someone who knows their way around will skip Google and go straight to their choice of torrent search site(s). They skip the search engine part of "search engine -> torrent search site -> torrent".

          He's not talking about torrent search sites, he's talking about major search engines. As far as I can tell, anyway.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    co.cc

    I thought the removal of the co.cc domains was more down to performance and misuse of Google's IP addresses issues than editorial content.

  6. Kevin7
    Stop

    Been done before

    Does anyone remember Channel 4's "Red Triangle" from years ago? This used to warn you of adult content - or at least that was the idea. Instead it became an onan magnet - it was a byword for one handed telly watching. Funnily enough the Red Triangle didn't last very long...

    1. theBatman

      Onan magnet...

      LOL!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    An "OOH LOOK" magnet

    Reminds me of the old Red Warning Triangle they tried to put in the corner of the screen during smutty Channel 4 programmes - great way to get people to watch filth!

    (and it didn't take long for C4 to abandon the idea either)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    cheeky gits

    So the Music Industry want the search engines to spend time and money to implement and maintain a solution that does the Music Industry's dirty work for them. How long would it be before Google et al got subpoenaed to provide the Music Industry with a list of the sites that they flagged as "dodgy."

    It's time they realised that this isn't the 1980/1990s and that their profits won't be at that level again as we aren't going to pay to replace all our Vinyl with CDs again.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    luckily we can trust the music industry

    not to abuse their position at all...

    http://www.boingboing.net/2011/07/20/universal-music-accu.html?dlvrit=36761

  10. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Thin end of the wedge

    This is web blocking by the backdoor.

    If Google implement this, the music industry will not be satisfied. I can hear the arguments now.

    "Google clearly know these sites are bad, so why don't they remove the links entirely?"

    Other people with an axe to grind will ask why Google doesn't mark other sites in a similar way - cue a Daily Fail campaign to get sites deemed to be pro-abortion, anti-Christian, anti-monarchy, anti-British, pro-Europe marked....

  11. Mostor Astrakan

    To quote Mr. DNA:

    "The foreman had explained that the accountant could go and boil his head and the accountant had explained to the foreman that the thing approaching him rapidly from his left was a knuckle sandwich."

    They're trying to get Google to do their work for them and flag sites that someone, somewhere thinks is infringing someone's copyright in some way. The copyright police will then get on with suing the persons found guilty and profiting from the proceeds, citing google's authority.

    I don't see why Google doesn't leap at the chance.

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