Google Removed 749 Million Anna's Archive URLs From Its Search Results (torrentfreak.com) 38
Google has delisted over 749 million URLs from Anna's Archive, a shadow library and meta-search engine for pirated books, representing 5% of all copyright takedown requests ever filed with the company. TorrentFreak reports: Google's transparency report reveals that rightsholders asked Google to remove 784 million URLs, divided over the three main Anna's Archive domains. A small number were rejected, mainly because Google didn't index the reported links, resulting in 749 million confirmed removals. The comparison to sites such as The Pirate Bay isn't fair, as Anna's Archive has many more pages in its archive and uses multiple country-specific subdomains. This means that there's simply more content to take down. That said, in terms of takedown activity, the site's three domain names clearly dwarf all pirate competition.
Since Google published its first transparency report in May 2012, rightsholders have flagged 15.1 billion allegedly infringing URLs. That's a staggering number, but the fact that 5% of the total targeted Anna's Archive URLs is remarkable. Penguin Random House and John Wiley & Sons are the most active publishers targeting the site, but they are certainly not alone. According to Google data, more than 1,000 authors or publishers have sent DMCA notices targeting Anna's Archive domains. Yet, there appears to be no end in sight. Rightsholders are reporting roughly 10 million new URLs per week for the popular piracy library, so there is no shortage of content to report.
Since Google published its first transparency report in May 2012, rightsholders have flagged 15.1 billion allegedly infringing URLs. That's a staggering number, but the fact that 5% of the total targeted Anna's Archive URLs is remarkable. Penguin Random House and John Wiley & Sons are the most active publishers targeting the site, but they are certainly not alone. According to Google data, more than 1,000 authors or publishers have sent DMCA notices targeting Anna's Archive domains. Yet, there appears to be no end in sight. Rightsholders are reporting roughly 10 million new URLs per week for the popular piracy library, so there is no shortage of content to report.
Re:rightsholders asked Google to remove 784 millio (Score:5, Insightful)
Streisand moment? Anyone who's not heard of the site before, now has and so google's search results become irrelevant - surely?
Re:rightsholders asked Google to remove 784 millio (Score:4, Informative)
libgen has a pretty good search on its own, which also links to anna's library, so google has been irrelevant for that specific search for years.
Re: (Score:2)
Mr. putin's russia is very much pro-copyright, darling, it even keeps collecting copyright royalties "on behalf" of the Western holders while under sanctions, although in a regime they call a "mirror move" to the freeze of their assets.
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I suspect that practically nobody uses Google nowadays. That does not mean that Google search is irrelevant. It just shifted from front-end to middle-ware position for AI skins heavily using Google searches as one of their major sources of generated content.
So this is just next brick in the wall of AI's distortion of reality - it already has plenty on its own, refusing to present results that are perfectly findable by Google.
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I did not say it is irrelevant in general, just in this specific case it is not necessary.
Re: rightsholders asked Google to remove 784 milli (Score:2)
Which is a bit ironic, this exact behavior is what Google defended with Google News.
Re: rightsholders asked Google to remove 784 milli (Score:3)
Thanks Google I didn't know about this before.
The google is CAUSING the problem (Score:2)
If the google actually wanted to fix the problem, then they would fix it. Putting bandages over the "naughty" URLs is just stupid. The scammers will merely create fresh URLs.
The solution is obvious, but the google doesn't want to see it because they are profiting from the problem. When they get a copyright complaint, the google needs to find the WEBSEARCH that led to the scene of the crime and they need to fix that WEBSEARCH so it only points to legitimate results, not copyright abuses. In other words, the
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You can literally go to the report and see that. It has the website and who requested the removal.
Google Search getting worse (Score:2)
Re:Google Search getting worse (Score:4, Interesting)
A couple of things:
Do people still actually use Google anymore?
Have the other search sites crawled Google content and grabbed a copy of the take down request. Along with the list of URLs?
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Re: Google Search getting worse (Score:2)
I increasingly find myself using google only as a market place: whrn I search for something that I know for a fact must exist as a product, I use google and click on "Products" category, so I have a fairly decent chance of finding a shop with a good on-line price.
But for anything else? Nope.
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Do people still actually use Google anymore?
Yes, most people do https://gs.statcounter.com/bro... [statcounter.com]
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Ha, good catch. What a dumb mistake.
Anyways, Google's domination of the market is even more significant if we use the right info https://www.semrush.com/blog/g... [semrush.com]
"Google accounts for 89.66% of the global search engine market"
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This one's for search engines. [statcounter.com]
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Yes, they do. Almost everyone. [statcounter.com]
Typical Google (Score:1)
Good thing I already have the site bookmarked.
All This Makes Me Think About... (Score:2)
Not saying that it's pointless (yet) to do so, but it sure seems headed that way.
At some future stage, all of this enforcement will not be worthwhile or manageable anymore.
The one thing that comes to mind is Gabe Newell, who proved that piracy is only a problem when the stuff isn't easily available. One could wish that publishers would come to their senses and roughly offer everything in a similar fashi
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Try paying the authors to read the books they spent decades of their life trying to write and get paid a pittance for them.
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I do but the publishers take most of it and give the authors only a pittance. Unless of course the author is one of the few that has become wealthy from their most popular books.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
How many books can you afford and how many do you need? Do you know what scientific books (or even articles) cost if you'd actually buy them? Do you know, that the publishers do not pay the authors?
Do you know, that scientists need to skim over (not completely read most of them) like 10-20 papers per day, of which each would cost $10-$30 to be able to do useful research? Licensing science works doesn't work, if you don't want to reduce your research to a handful of journals your university spends a fortune
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Occasionally I do. However, more often than not I go to a used book store to save a few bucks. Authors nor publishers benefit from that, but it doesn't bother me as I give a book a good home. :)
Re:Oh noes, how inconvenient (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. First, lower the copyright term to match that of patents. Second, restore the latter (both) to the original 14 years. Once there is a reasonable balance between all of the interested parties again, let's talk. But the conciliatory ship sailed with Lars and Hillary and has never had reason to return to shore. And so long as one side is an abusive cartel with regulatory capture with absolute power to screw over the other everyone else, fuck 'em.
Whack a mole (Score:3)
This has zero effect on piracy. This is just more business for lawyers.
This is also extremely stupid. The more inconvenient legal internet becomes for peccadileos like sharing pirated files, the more the public will escalate towards less controlled means of communication. VPNs, TOR, or god forbid, masses of privately owned cheap radios. If we reach this stage, the replacement of internet will be totally uncontrollable and nobody will worry about book piracy, or even child porn anymore. No, our big problem will be the equivalent of radio des milles collines paid by state actors to destabilize us. That already exists in lower form with social networks who spew hate and cause great damage. It will be much worse.
About that radio and how many people it managed to kill and how: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Copyright money-grab again (Score:3, Insightful)
Oops, all my NFTs are gone! (Score:2)
No, not really. But I'll bet a few of those URLs were actually turned into NFTs.