Warner Bros reports itself for piracy

[Brian G Turner]

Just when I thought the film industry had finally accepted the 21st century:

Warner Brothers reports own site as illegal - BBC News

Film studio Warner Brothers has asked Google to remove its own website from search results, saying it violates copyright laws.

It also asked the search giant to remove links to legitimate movie streaming websites run by Amazon and Sky, as well as the film database IMDB.

The request was submitted on behalf of Warner Brothers by Vobile, a company that files hundreds of thousands of takedown requests every month.

Warner Brothers has yet to comment.

 

[Dave]

Just when I thought the film industry had finally accepted the 21st century.

This is about the use of automated systems, so I'm not sure it proves your statement unless you mean that they don't understand technology (which is probably true and you can imagine a board of old buffers with no clue.)

After reviewing the Warner Brothers report, Google decided not to remove links to Amazon, IMDB and Sky Cinema from its results.

I think the real question here is how many legitimate websites has Google removed, simply because they don't have the same clout as Amazon, IMDB and Sky, and what that means about the internet becoming more "Corporate?"

These automated systems are C*** and impossible to argue with. I had something removed on one website, protested and had it reinstated, then had it removed again a few weeks later. I just give up then. I had a picture of a "tree" removed on another site because it was deemed to be "too sexual." They know that they make mistakes, but it is too much hard work to do it manually (as Moderators here will attest to.)

 

[Dave]

It is also about having "computer says no" rules (as the Little Britain sketches spoofed) but which actually happens. Here is an example from Facebook:

Newspaper fury over Facebook 'Napalm girl' censorship - BBC News

Facebook has controversially removed the iconic image of a girl fleeing a Napalm attack during the Vietnam war from a post, on the grounds of nudity.

The editor of Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten said the entire post, which was about iconic war imagery, was later deleted and the account of the reporter behind it suspended.

Espen Egil Hansenhas accused Mark Zuckerberg of "an abuse of power".

Facebook said it has to restrict nudity for cultural reasons.

Facebook may want to restrict nudity for cultural reasons, but does it need to suspend the account of the reporter to achieve this? These sites say that they want to take down pornography but they don't actually do it. They rely on automated systems and reports from imbeciles to remove perfectly acceptable pictures while leaving the real pornography. I just had an email from YouTube telling me about some new content. That was fine as I must have signed up to it somewhere, but below it was an unsolicited advert from them of their "featured content that I might like." All of it was pornography. When did I ever ask YouTube to send me pornography?

What is not okay for the individual is perfectly okay for large corporations, and you have no redress against their decisions. I agree, it is an "abuse of power."

 

[WaylanderToo]

It is also about having "computer says no" rules (as the Little Britain sketches spoofed) but which actually happens. Here is an example from Facebook:

Newspaper fury over Facebook 'Napalm girl' censorship - BBC News
Facebook may want to restrict nudity for cultural reasons, but does it need to suspend the account of the reporter to achieve this? These sites say that they want to take down pornography but they don't actually do it. They rely on automated systems and reports from imbeciles to remove perfectly acceptable pictures while leaving the real pornography. I just had an email from YouTube telling me about some new content. That was fine as I must have signed up to it somewhere, but below it was an unsolicited advert from them of their "featured content that I might like." All of it was pornography. When did I ever ask YouTube to send me pornography?

What is not okay for the individual is perfectly okay for large corporations, and you have no redress against their decisions. I agree, it is an "abuse of power."

I must say I'm feeling a little miffed here - youtube have never offered me porn

 

[Overread]

This is nothing new; in the past I think one big studio had a legal department that kept sending take-down requests for so many official trailers on youtube that youtube (google) basically sent them an order that they'd not honour any more take-down requests until the legal department got its act together.

This is certainly an example of automated systems being poorly made to not include even the most basic of exception codes; or simply a legal department/company which is so zealous or which has farmed out its basic low level work to untrained staff (or possibly those overseas who might have very little understanding of the language they are searching on; but simply searches on key search terms given to them to run through search engines).