UK Govt. Warns Google, Microsoft & Yahoo Over Piracy

[shamu726]

UK Culture Secretary Sajid Javid says that the government has warned Google, Microsoft and Yahoo over the issue of online piracy. In an address to the BPI’s AGM in London yesterday, Javid said that if the search engines don't stop referring people to pirate sites, the government will take a legislative approach.

Developments over the past 12 months have sent the clearest message yet that the UK government is not only prepared to morally support the creative industries, but also spend public money on anti-piracy enforcement.

The government-funded City of London Intellectual Property Crime Unit is definitely showing no signs of losing interest, carrying out yet another arrest yesterday morning on behalf of video rightsholders. In the afternoon during the BPI’s Annual General Meeting in London, the unit was being praised by both government officials and a music sector also keen to bring piracy under control.

“We’ve given £2.5 million to support the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, PIPCU,” Culture Secretary Sajid Javid told those in attendance.

“The first unit of its kind in the world, PIPCU is working with industry groups – including the BPI – on the Infringing Websites List. The list identifies sites that deliberately and consistently breach copyright, so brand owners can avoid advertising on them.”

Referencing rampant online piracy, Javid said that no industry or government could stand by and let “massive, industrial scale” levels of infringement continue.

“I know some people say the IP genie is out of the bottle and that no amount of wishing will force it back in. But I don’t agree with them,” he said.

“We don’t look at any other crimes and say ‘It’s such a big problem that it’s not worth bothering with.’ We wouldn’t stand idly by if paintings worth hundreds of millions of pounds were being stolen from the National Gallery.Copyright infringement is theft, pure and simple. And it’s vital we try to reduce it.”

Going on to detail the Creative Content initiative which the government is supporting to the tune of £3.5m, Javid said the system would deliver a “robust, fair and effective enforcement regime”.

But that, however, is only one part of the puzzle. Infringing sites need to be dealt with, directly and by other means, he added.

“Copyright crooks don’t love music. They love money, and they’ve been attracted to the industry solely by its potential to make them rich. Take away their profits and you take away their reason for being. Of course, it’s not just up to the government and music industry to deal with this issue,” he noted.

Putting search engines on notice, the MP said that they have an important role to play.

“They must step up and show willing. That’s why [business Secretary] Vince Cable and I have written to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, asking them to work with [the music industry] to stop search results sending people to illegal sites,” Javid said.

“And let me be perfectly clear: if we don’t see real progress, we will be looking at a legislative approach. In the words of [beggars Group chairman] Martin Mills, ‘technology companies should be the partners of rights companies, not their masters’.”

The Culture Secretary said that when it comes to tackling piracy, the government, music industry and tech companies are “three sides of the same triangle.” But despite that expectation of togetherness, only time will tell if the search engines agree to the point of taking voluntary action to support it.

Source: TorrentFreak

[2635599]

morons don't realize peeople in the ul will just use search engines the uk gov can't touch or block.

[locoJoe]

moron don't realize peeople will just use search engines the uk gov can't touch or block.

What? :lmao:

[VileTouch]

Copyright infringement is theft, pure and simple.

it is NOT... saying so only shows his ignorance on the matter.

under their definition, a "pirate" site is anything that is not being taxed (and/or controlled) by them, so their struggle is one for power and wealth, not fairness or justice.... like it's 1557

[2635599]

Copyright infringement is theft, pure and simple.

you really should know what you're talking about before opening your mouth. i cannot speak about software, but it is a fact when music sales go up so does piracy, when music sales go down so does piracy. the movie industries best years ever have also been the years with the highest piracy, and when sales have gone down so has piracy.

[steven36]

There's and add-on that helps for this its called Add to Search Bar

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-to-search-bar/

Most sites have there own search engine and you can add it to your browser with that.

I predicted this would happen some years ago . People who post warez for money now all these sites opened up to cash in on file host paying to upload now Karma is coming back on them . You seem to forget most of these sites depend on these search engines to earn a profit.

I was around when everything was still mostly underground and we did just fine or better when file hosting did not pay money . Back then only reward you got was maybe a free premium account or free traffic share .

There's many large private torrent sites that dont even depend on search engines at all . Also there's some search enignes that list the links to most public torrent sites . There's even some sites that post the most poplar blogs and forums . I could just open a topic at most forums that allow it and jut post all my book marks from years and years . If search engines die maybe some sites that do it for profit will die but those that have lots of supporters will not. ;)