Google Broke My Heart
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A developer's world was turned upside down when Google's actions allegedly led to the deindexing of their site, sparking a heated debate about the tech giant's responsibility in policing online content. Commenters weighed in on the matter, with some arguing that Google's safe harbor status is at risk due to its handling of takedown notices, while others pointed out that the company is merely a linker, not a host, and thus not liable for the content. The discussion revealed a deep-seated frustration with the DMCA process and the perceived favoritism towards corporate interests, with many calling out the "impossible at scale" defense as a cop-out. As the conversation unfolded, it became clear that the real issue lies at the intersection of technology, law, and the human cost of automation.
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I don't think there's standing to sue. Linking to pirated content isn't illegal. They could be found guilty of contributory infringement but that's a tough case since the legal requirement is that Google needs to know for sure that it's pirated (which is impossible at scale).
Google being informed by the copyright holder that it's for sure pirated is pretty good evidence that they know it's pirated.
The fact that this doesn't scale isn't really a legal defense.
The author only needs to show up to court with a driver’s license to prove their identity. The judge would rule in favor of the author the same day if someone from Google actually bothered to show up.
A scammer isn’t going to court. Don’t try to solve for that.
Lol, hail corporate!
It's definitely possible, you just got hand-waved on that.
Simple example: Disney opens up a new website that has some of their obvious content on it. How does Google know that Disney owns that website and has authorized its use? If they get a takedown notice, how do they know the sender owns the content?
There's no formal verification system that exists for such things. It's all based on an honor system that is easy for bad actors to abuse (which is probably why Google changed how they do things).
The entirety of copyrighted law has failed. It isn't working as intended and hasn't for a long time now. Anyone who understands how easy it is to copy bits should know that the original intent of copyright can't work anymore. We need something new to replace it.
You call someone, you send a letter, something. It's not rocket science.
It's not automated, sure, but somethings will never be automated, just by their nature. That doesn't mean it doesn't scale. Well, sure it does. You just hire more staff.
For Christ's sake, it used to be that phone calls required physical action from an operator to get connected. And now we can't do shit if there isn't an API for it or some bullshit.
You're right, of course, but when people say "it doesn't scale" they tend to mean "it doesn't scale at with a near-zero marginal cost".
Maybe we should be calling out that wording.
Every Googler on the planet just laughed and downed another Tequila shot.
To judge the claim of unscalability true, we would first need to know the rate of DMCA takedown requests, the number 1 person can investigate in a day, and then we can do the math of whether total revenue can pay for those employees.
Even if not, it's not an excuse. The only legal venue google has to complain about this, is getting the law changed.
No need for the "doesn't scale" argument, whatever system they have in place is already good enough to process OP's inquire. The problematic bit is what they decided to do once they had all the information in their hands.
I do, however, think this is just a mishandled situation and Google will correct, particularly after being featured on the HN wall of shame.
AI makes this even more stringent. You cannot protect the "vibe" of your works, AI can replicate it in seconds. If you make "vibe infringement" the new rule, then creativity becomes legally risky. A catch 22.
In 1930 judge Hand said in relation to Nichols v. Universal Pictures:
> Upon any work...a great number of patterns of increasing generality will fit equally well. At the one end is the most concrete possible expression...at the other, a title...Nobody has ever been able to fix that boundary, and nobody ever can...As respects play, plagiarism may be found in the 'sequence of events'...this trivial points of expression come to be included.
And since then a litany of judges and tests expanded the notion of infringement towards vibes and away from expression:
- Hand's Abstractions / The "Patterns" Test (Nichols v. Universal Pictures)
- Total Concept and Feel (Roth Greeting Cards v. United Card Co.)
- The Krofft Test / Extrinsic and Intrinsic Analysis
- Sequence, Structure, and Organization (Whelan Associates v. Jaslow Dental Laboratory)
- Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison (AFC) Test (Computer Associates v. Altai)
The trend has been to make infringement more and more abstract over time, but this makes testing it an impossible burden. How do you ensure you are not infringing any protected abstraction on any level in any prior work? Due diligence has become too difficult now.
Either they solve it or they should give op the benefit of the doubt. Arguing that x or y isn't possible at scale doesn't mean you get to break the law.
> Not unless you want internet randos to be able to take down any YouTube channel they want for “copyright infringement.”
This is why it's a bad law! But it is the law.
(3) Elements of notification.-
(A) To be effective under this subsection, a notification of claimed infringement must be a written communication provided to the designated agent of a service provider that includes substantially the following:
(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.
(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.
(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.
(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Unless the OP wrote a book thats just one long URL, and even then.
I love how this is the defense of all these tech companies. "I'm sorry, your honor, we are just a poor multi-trillion dollar company... there's just no way for us to control anything, because we're just too big..."
Well - the legal system favours those with more money, so basically it is corporate-law that is in effect there. And Google has enough money to burn and protect against small authors.
Never think of any sort of for-profit enterprise as anything other than a for-profit enterprise, and you'll never be heartbroken by one.
Angered? Made to think you're living in a dystopia? Enticed into an absurdist world view? Absolutely. But you won't be heartbroken.
Anyway, if you still think this won't help you can use a notary service, yes.
THink of Google like how Cantrill described Ellison:
You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle.
As for how to do it - I don't see why it is hard for you to come up with something that proves ownership. Do your books have a publisher? Do you have a contract with the publisher? Or just a letter from someone at the firm confirming your work? Have you registered the work with the copyright office? Do you have proof of publishing on online portals?
You aren't helping yourself or anyone else by anthropomorphising Google. It is not your friend who can "break your heart", or a "trustworthy helper on the Web", or a "trusted ally", but a large bureaucratic corporation. Treat it like the machine it is and you will get the results you want.
It is pretty hard to come up with proof of ownership when Google refuses to tell you what forms of proof they will find acceptable. When I go to the DMV and need to prove my residence, the DMV clearly states what forms are acceptable proof. Google should do the same, especially when they are asked what forms of proof are acceptable. Instead they gave this guy the runaround and ignored his question on how to prove ownership.
I needed to get my "Real ID" driver license (when I was newly moved to CA).
I first went to their official website and printed out the page listing the various types of ID required (n1 from column A, n2 from column B type of thing.)
I then gathered n1+1 items from column A and n2+1 items from column B.
Headed over to the DMV office in West LA.
Stood in two lines (one outside, one indoors) for more than 4 hours.
Eventually got to the desk to verify that I had the correct ID types so that I could get a number in order to wait to be called up to another line where I would actually hand in my documents.
Friendly gentleman with the SEIU sticker on his shirt says "this ID is not sufficient." I show him the printout of their website, indicating all the items matching (exceeding) the requirements. He says "I don't care." I ask to speak to the supervisor. He says, "supervisor's not here" and proceeds to stare at me. I eventually left and went to a different office.
Google can suck at times but it doesn't hold a candle to the DMV. They should be nuked from orbit.
I think the most interesting part was when I finally was “helped” and the person was so rude and demeaning, loudly and vocally, I said as few words as possible to make things move along quickly.
Towards the end, before I had what I needed, I was asked to take a survey and rate my experience. I waited until I had accomplished my goal, and without any guilt gave the worst rating I could.
A manager called me later that day asking about my rating, I was very surprised. I explained myself and even got a bit of an apology.
I’ll add your experience to my list of “why I’ll never live in California” which is starting to really become substantial.
Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/d38vof/how_t...
California recalls 325,000 Real IDs. Ooops.
https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/california-dmv-recal...
OTOH, my experience with licenses, renewals, etc., in the State of Washington was the polar opposite. Fast, easy, and efficient.
Whoosh.
Would your reaction have been as visceral if I had named another state?
I am a bit biased though - I read way too many stories in HN of abuses of DMCA than this sort of issue. That said, this does seem unresponsive.
There's no way to design such a system that has zero false positives and zero false negatives; if you do no verification whatsoever you'll get tons of false positives, now it seems like Google has added a small amount of verification, at least sometimes, so now there are some false negatives.
What does engineering have to do with that?
This seems like more than a false negative. Author clearly stated they were willing to jump through whatever necessary hoops. Google didn't seem to have the hoops to jump through.
Google needs to fix this, it's really bad.
Many other creators don't have a platform with any word near the reach YouTube has... And until that changes, there's almost no incentive for YouTube to change.
Do they really? It seems the incentives are aligned so that they continue making the big bucks regardless of 'petty grievances' such as these..
I still remember trying to get my Google Play account unbanned in 2014 after I clicked on my own ad in the app once to test that it’s working. Lovely times. Got the account back, but not due to my actions - their dumb bots masquerading as humans were giving me the runaround, and then I just randomly got my account back.
First, worth reading this on how he deals with credit agencies and debt collectors: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r... . There's gold in here for dealing with big globo-corp and how to get their attention.
Ask Google for a certified mail address so you can send them the timeline of events that occurred. This is the shibboleth that lets them know you mean business and that by not responding, they may be facing legal action. DO NOT THREATEN or mention legal action. The managerial class doesn't act that way. Just signal you are building a case against them. Start with getting that certified mailing address... you may be surprised how they respond after just that request.
If they don't respond, keep following up. Send them a timeline of events, proof of ownership even if they do not ask you what you need to prove ownership. Make it clear what this is costing you.
But here's the thing, EVERY TIME I HAVE ASKED FOR A CERTIFIED MAIL ADDRESS, the globocorp gave me what i wanted, and I never had to follow up. Every time. They don't want to deal with actual legal action from "people who know what they are doing."
It's a shibboleth. Like "Baa-ram-ewe." Use it wisely and honestly.
It seems to me that without know that, you're still making empty threats, only doing it passive aggressively.
I'm a little confused here - you sue them, in small claims court, for not providing a service address?
How do you serve them without an address, for a claim of not providing an address?
I mean, I know what happens when I appear in court as the applicant/plaintiff, and tell the judge that the respondent/defendant was never served.
Okay, lets say the judge doesn't laugh my case out at that - how is my claim going to proceed? "I claim $X monies for not supplying me with their service address"?
(My understanding is that, by not providing a service address, all you can do is report them to specific bureaus, arbitration councils, etc. You cannot sue businesses, as far as I know, for not having or not providing a service address).
He points out how expressing all the natural human reactions - anger, fear, supplication, bargaining - tell the institution that you are a vulnerable, manipulable moron. The implacable robot that knows the process but doesn't care is what gets results.
> Where exactly should I address letters?
> Google is your friend.
considering the context, I found it amusing.
Not that he needed to do any of this. He wouldn't be a tiny bit less right if the text was a sterile and objetive list of facts about what happened.
It's rhetoric. You're making it about manipulation. Should the world consist of bloodless lists of facts without significance or commentary?
I doubt this is possible for the support agent to do.
Make your books available for free, and you won't have this problem. You can't expect people to pay for something that literally costs nothing once it has been created.
You may also sell paper versions. Some people like myself enjoy reading paper better and will pay for hard copy if they like the book enough or expect to refer to it often.
See these carrots! it doesn't cost anything to create them now, because they've already been created haven't they!
Once the oil has been extracted from the ground, and transported to the gas station and put in the tank, it doesn't cost anything to pump it!! Why are we paying for this stuff again!?!?
You can't expect people to pay for code you know, it doesn't cost anything!
If the same payment model that is applied to books and music were applied to carrots, it would be illegal to plant carrots. If you think about it like that it's obviously wrong.
The carrots in your example would be similar to the printed books the GP mentioned, not the text itself.
Of course I can agree that there are differences between these things, but the average writer earns less than the average programmer, and for this reason I often feel it is somewhat gauche that many programmers seem offended by how writers earn money and want it stopped, without any good suggestion as to how they should earn money otherwise. It's like when rich people complain that janitors get food stamps to survive, it motivates my sarcasm gland.
So how are software developers, authors and musicians supposed to make a living?
>As for software development, the open source model clearly shows that money can be made
Ok, so I sell data wrangling software for Windows and Mac for $99 per license. Mostly to people who aren't programmers. Kindly tell me how that would work with an open source model.
Even without copyright, nothing prevents your from selling software. Chances are people who don't want to pay for your software already don't. If paying for software adds value otherwise (such as access to updates and support), people will still pay for it.
Does it?
The marginal cost of production of a cheap paperback is marginal, the upfront cost is large.
The few pennies that are saved with digital distribution are not a huge game changer regarding the finances of publishing.
Otherwise printing and distributing 1000 copies of a book is surely vastly more expensive compared to having 1000 downloads of an epub file.
Most of the cost to publish a book is upfront. Editing, laying, cover art, diagrams, etc.
It costs less than $2 to print a book in bulk quantities.
Margins suck. That is why publishers go out of business all the time. Margins aren't any better on ebooks. It costs money to maintain a digital store front.
For an example of the costs of digital distribution in another field, look at Good Old Games. They are a digital distribution platform and they barely break even / turn a profit. (A bit more complicated since they also do some of the porting work)
Digital distribution has super low per unit costs but huge upfront costs.
Newspapers subscription prices only ever covered a small % of the overall costs.
Spotify is a complicated racket, there are some very good video essays exploring who is making money off of Spotify (it isn't Spotify and it isn't the artists!), a but the rabbit hole there goes deep.
bounties, commissions, live concerts, patronage.
Software devs are a fairly new concept but traditionally artists aren't expected to make a living of their work, more like barely surviving.
You expect every artist, actor, painter, and programmer to make zero $ from anything they create?
It may be hard to imagine, I don't think things would be massively different overall.
Apart from all the millions of people like me (an Indie software developer) that would suddenly have 0 income from their digital products?
Or are you just trolling for a reaction?
Apart from a few notables exceptions, artists have been poor and broken since the dawn of time.
Michelangelo, Mozart, Jeff Koons and Taylor Swift are the exception, not the rule.
There needs to be a transition from making money from unit sales to something else, and until that's sorted out I think having piracy being at least stigmatized for being wrong makes sense.
I think it's important for a creator to ensure that the experience for those who want to pay is as good as possible. Apart from that I don't think any amount of worry will help very much.
Even if he offers it for free others may still try to collect money for his work. If he sells paper copies other printers could undercut him.
Google is broken to the very core.
This is what happens with a company that tries to minimize costs of support to zero.
At the end of the day, the best option is to use an attorney who would at least run the risk of professional consequences for submitting false claims.
Ok, but then Google needs to say what would convince them that the author is who they say they are. The author asked multiple times how they prove they’re the real author and Google’s replies never even acknowledge the question.
Trademark issues are therefore really simple: is the user of the trademark the one who has it registered or not?
But copyright holders don't have any standard, obvious evidence they can point to that shows it's really their copyright. They can file a DMCA, in which case companies normally just assume the complaint is accurate - but if the party on the other end objects, the case has to go to a judge who will determine who actually has the copyright and if infringement occurred.
Anyway, it's what I was told when I joined Google Ads a long time ago and it seems consistent with their philosophy and behavior.
So it sounds like their policy of having a high bar for proving identity but still publicising what is required to meet that bar works for preventing fraud?
If anything, your argument is an indictment against Google.
That's not true. He mentions that he is the owner of the books official websites, which are registered with Google, presumably with all of his personal and billing information.
It would take 2 seconds for anyone at Google to confirm this.
Not really... Google is literally too big, and the fact that they've offshored and/or automated support away and compartmentalized it all where no single IC employee could possibly do much.
I had a billing/tax issue come up with my small biz Google Workspace, and I was getting nowhere via the normal support channels... So I asked my brother in-law who literally works at Google (but not in that team) for help. He could not help me as he had no idea who or what department could handle that and neither did his team members, and it would take weeks apparently to find the right person. I'm not the only paying Google customer with that experience. Google products are great, until you run into an issue you need to talk to a human.
Something doesnt add up. Because that seems like a bare minimum to collaborate at all.
Now you're getting a clue why Google had like 3-4 competing communication tools at some point lol
So it clearly cant be the case.
Ask their managers? But then how do their managers verify?
They could have been Slack if they didn't transmogrify it into a social media platform (Google+) and then throw out the baby with the bathwater when it failed.
Searching for the tree root starting from a tree leaf is easy, but searching for the right leaf starting from the root takes a lot more effort.
> chart they can check, then how do they
> verify who is on what team?
Having worked at some very large companies, none of which published org charts, it's done by word of mouth and making informed guesses.
"Alice, I saw you were the last editor of this document. Are you still on that team, or can you point me to the best PoC?"
You really think some guy in some offshore office for low pay, with his boss hounding at him about his KPIs, is going to go out of his way to bother with this?
Aside from the huge array of stuff they've built in house, the "List of mergers and acquisitions by Alphabet" wikipedia page has 264 entries. Some of those bought other companies.
Google won't talk to us normies because 1) it's a cost and they don't have to 2) they've convinced themselves that if they tell anyone anything, then the unwashed masses will take advantage of their process/get the service we're owed under law
They really should....
> ... it's a cost and they don't have to
There are much bigger costs looming for Google if they continue to ignore DMCA
Google are in the hands of the Money Monkeys. Short term gain and get out before the pain.
What a shame.
I don't get to ignore the law just because if I follow it, someone who isn't might get one over on me.
All of this nonsense because Google wants to automate their DMCA takedown process and not hire anyone to deal with real cases as they come, as is their duty.
A company like Google could trust you for being really the author because who would lie? and those that lie about these things usually couldn't spell or use technology.
The world changed and now Google can't afford to trust someone that says he's the author, because people take advantage of that.
So if you ask me what's worse, this guy having to contact his publisher to get his book off the web, or someone being blackmailed to keep his youtube channel, imo they are right to require a proper lawyer
What if folks signed their work with a private PGP key and published their public key? If you wanted to submit a DMCA request, simply sign a message to prove you’re the content owner. It seems like that could work.
https://www.copyright.gov/registration
While copyright registration is not legally required for copyright protection, it is the practical way to create usable evidence that the work is coprighted by you. Without it, challenging a copyright infringer is a more arduous legal process.
Also, the author's website, and the books themselves claims that "Perishable Press" is the copyright holder, not "Jeff Starr". (Excepting the ones that don't state any copyright holder.)
https://books.perishablepress.com/downloads/digging-into-wor...
In legal matters, clear and accurate communication is essential.
And why should you, one of the little people, be able to prove anything at all? If a big player sues, Google is going to have to pay a staggering amount of money, thus they obey. If you sue, its lawyers will drain you financially by protracting everything they can, so you don't actually sue. If they take your claim, the content they take down stops bringing the sweet advertising revenue.
And thus the computer sayeth Nay.
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