Comment by SideburnsOfDoom
15 years ago
Well, I disagree. it is evil.
The argument they "have to comply" due to third parties and presumption-of-infringement laws may be true. If it is, that is beside the point; that doesn't make it a good action.
15 years ago
Well, I disagree. it is evil.
The argument they "have to comply" due to third parties and presumption-of-infringement laws may be true. If it is, that is beside the point; that doesn't make it a good action.
If you consider content removal evil, I think you need to get your moral compass re-calibrated. There are numerous adjectives that could describe that specific situation, like stupid or even lazy, but evil is a stretch.
When the Feds can come kick your doors down and haul your servers out for non-compliance, what choice do you have? Not to say Google is good either, but the content mess isn't really their making. In fact, their technology has helped more than hindered the spread of content.
> If you consider content removal evil, I think you need to get your moral compass re-calibrated.
That's not what I consider in general, and I don't know how you came up with that reading. I agree that it's not the worst action ever in the history of evil (and most was just stupid), but you're not even arguing the right point: the content was not removed, it was a case of automated copyright abuse for profit:
> "Youtube informed me that I was using Rumblefish’s copyrighted content, and so ads would be placed on my video, with the proceeds going to said company" http://c4sif.org/2012/02/youtube-identifies-birdsong-as-copy...
First, why is Youtube evil? Wasn't the company that abused?
Second, how is Youtube evil for doing whatever they want with the ads in their own website? Sure, they claimed it was due to copyright reasons, but that doesn't make the action in itself "evil".
Google has done a lot of crap, from the obvious privacy problems to outright fraud in Kenya. Picking on that seems ridiculous.
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Why downvote this? It's a valid comment. A 'good' action would be for Google to revoke Rumblefish's takedown ability, and force them to use a real DMCA request. At least that would allow for legal recourse when Rumblefish commits fraud.
If you really want to debate if this was evil or not (and if it becomes less evil if you outsource it, pass the buck or bend over to big content) then there was a HackerNews discussion (Maybe two or three...) on this topic. People trotted out their apologies there for this unacceptable action, so I'm sure there are good rebuttals there.
The basic question that I asked was: Why is MS held to a different standard to the big guys of the internet (chiefly Apple, Facebook, Google, Oracle, paypal/ebay)? What recent actions do we have to compare them on?
The basic question that I asked was: Why is MS held to a different standard to the big guys of the internet (chiefly Apple, Facebook, Google, Oracle, paypal/ebay)? What recent actions do we have to compare them on?
Why does it have to be recent? Should we just whitewash the past? It was ten years ago, not in the 19th century. They even have the same CEO.
But in any case, they're still extorting companies using their grotesque FAT patents.
What about the secure boot story http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/01/microsoft-manda...
That's recent and it is evil. Microsoft never was completely evil they just put the mighty dollar above everything else including software quality.
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You want Google to be sued into oblivion and have its executives possibly jailed for criminal copyright infringement because you judge compliance with applicable laws to be evil?
That's not what I said. There are many other options, no need to bring your false dichotomy and straw-man scenario into it.
Actually, it's exactly what you said, whether you know it or not. Google's action was dictated by US law. If you have some magical way for a US company run by US citizens residing in the US to get around US law, I'm sure we'd all be interested to hear it.
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