Frustrated and bitter that laws like SOPA and PIPA have yet to get pushed through Congress without those pesky constituents objecting to turning the U.S. government into muscle for entertainment industry, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is taking out its anger on Google. The music industry lobbying group is accusing the search engine giant of failing to effectively demote search results that lead people to those nasty little download sites.

In a blog post on the RIAA site yesterday, Steven M. Marks, EVP & General Counsel, RIAA made it clear that the music copyright association thinks that Google, despite making some headway, remains a day late and a dollar short.

"We recognize and appreciate that Google has undertaken some positive steps to address links to illegal music on its network," said Steven M. Marks, the RIAA's executive vice president and general counsel. "Unfortunately, our initial analysis concludes that so far Google's pledge six months ago to demote pirate sites remains unfulfilled. Searches for popular music continue to yield results that emphasize illegal sites at the expense of legitimate services, which are often relegated to later pages. And Google's auto-complete function continues to lead users to many of those same illicit sites."

(This isn't the first time: see also RIAA Slams Google's Anti-Piracy Efforts, Demands Even More Unreasonable Measures.)

Testing The Claims

I wanted to see if the RIAA might be overstating its concerns, something that they've been known to do before. So I performed a little one-man experiment, using the song "Some Nights" by Fun. as the guinea pig. Your mileage may vary, of course, but my quick-and-dirty test revealed that the RIAA may have some valid claims.

A search for "Fun. album" returned a first, second, and third page of results that were absent of any results that would seem to contain illegal downloads, with the bottom of the third page containing three DMCA takedown notices that point to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's ChillingEffects.org for more information.

But down in the "Searches related to" section of all of the results pages, "fun. some nights download" was among the listings, and a click-through pulled in the plenty of links to aggregate MP3 download sites, mixed with a few legitimate sites, like iTunes (#3), Amazon (#7) and the official video on YouTube (#8).

As for the RIAA's claim that Google's AutoComplete will suggest search terms that could lead users to sites containing unlicensed copies of songs, I found this was indeed true. By the time I typed "fun. some", Google had filled in four results:

fun. some nights
fun. some nights lyrics
fun. some nights meaning
fun. some nights mp3

On a whim, I turned on SafeSearch to see if that would make a difference. Results did differ on some search results, such as "fun. some nights download", where legitimate sites (like the Wikipedia entry for the album) were moved up slightly on the first page of results, but the sketchy download sites were still in full-glory display.

I should also note that the RIAA did not take Microsoft's Bing service to task, even thought the same experiment on Bing yielded very similar results, even in the auto-complete results. Type in "fun. some" on the Bing home page and you get these helpful suggestions:

fun. some nights lyrics
fun. some nights
fun. some nights meaning
fun. some nights torrent
fun. some nights video
fun. some nights album download
fun. some nights mp3
fun. some nights review

Search Engines As Police?

Based on these (admittedly quick) search tests, it seems like the RIAA has a point, and Google is failing to block apparent pirate sites on its search results, and its demotion policy announced in August 2012 isn't really working all that well, either.

But let's be clear: Google has said all along it wasn't going to block site results from any site unless it receives a specific copyright removal request from the rights owner.

"Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law. So while this new signal will influence the ranking of some search results, we won't be removing any pages from search results unless we receive a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner," senior vice president of engineering Amit Singhal wrote back in August.

At the time, what Google said it would do was add a new signal to how it ranks search results.

"Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results," Singhal stated.

The RIAA is contending in its statement this week that Google has failed to live up to that promise.

One has to wonder, though, if trying to keep up with the sheer number of sites that provide access to unlicensed media content is comparable to spitting on a forest fire. If the signal for page ranking depends in some way on number of takedown attempts, perhaps the RIAA and other rights holders are not sending enough signals. Or maybe these sites know who to game other ranking signals to boost their status on Google and Bing search results.

It is very easy to point fingers at Google and Bing and accuse them of not doing enough to keep people away from pirated media. If you forget, of course, that this not their job.

Complaining about the auto-completing results would seem to be a more valid concern, until you remember that there could be legitimate results for "download X."

The RIAA wants to protect the rights of its artists and producers, a valid concern. But it is not clear at all that Google, Microsoft and the other search engines should be relied upon as key allies in the recording industry's ongoing quest to stomp piracy. Search engines' missions are to provide data, not analyze that data for legality.

Despite what they're asking for here, I suspect even the most vehement anti-piracy activists would not care for some of the implications of a world where search engines were to undertake that goal.

The Senate will be taking on much-needed digital rights legislation in the new 113th Congress, including requiring law enforcement to have warrants before poking around online communications.

In a speech at Georgetown University Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt). stressed the need for defending civil liberties, protecting privacy, improving transparency and making a push to require a warrant before law enforcement has carte blanche to read people's emails, social media messages and other modes of online communication.

We're Trusting These Guys?

Congress has been questioned of late for implementing some eyebrow-raising initiatives that have thrown the Fourth Amendment under the bus and seemingly worked towards the opposite of Leahy's plans (think FISA, the Video Privacy Protection Act, and half a dozen other problematic regulations).  But if Leahy has his way, this new Congress could create legislation to help both consumers and creators protect their data. Leahy, who voted against FISA and was the chief proponent of last year's U.S. patent law reform, may be the right man to push these bills along.

In his speech, Leahy expressed concern over the potential loss of privacy that comes with the expanding use of drones in civilian life. The Federal Aviation Administration predicts that by the end of the decade, 30,000 commercial and government drones could be flying over U.S. skies. With that outcome literally on the horizon, Leahy plans on making drones the subject of Congressional hearings, indicating that legislators need to focus to make sure that technology will not be used to erode peoples’ privacy.

"I am concerned about the growing use of drones by Federal and local authorities to spy on Americans here at home," he said Wednesday. "We make a tragic mistake thinking that merely giving up more and more of our privacy will make us safer. It will not. Security and liberty are both essential in a free society, and we cannot forsake one for the other."

Leahy also spoke about insuring transparency, specifically referring to press freedoms. The son of Vermont printers said he has "concerns about the press being shut down." While he's against the release of classified government documents (think WikiLeaks), he says he will work to "make sure that legislative efforts to prevent classified leaks does not infringe upon our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of the press."

It's a pretty tricky balance Leahy is striking here, but this may be a way of saying he doesn't support penalizing journalists who publish formerly privileged documents.

Walling Off Our Data

The last, and perhaps most important, tenet of Leahy's plan was a promise to update outdated cyber security laws, specifically the 27-year-old Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Right now the ECPA gives police and government agencies the ability to read people's emails and digital communications - without a warrant.

Leahy, who turns 73 in March, has said the reason he's stayed chairman of the Judiciary Committee is to reform ECPA. He says electronic documents should have the same legal protection as paper documents. It won't be easy to fix this, but he's making it a top priority.

"It is going to be a fight," he said in his speech. "But I think people are realizing they don't have to give up their ability to use the Internet while at the same time guarding their freedom."

What The Speech Didn't Say

However, for all the good will towards modifying these laws, a few major items were missing from Leahy's speech. Another potential change to the ECPA is currently on the table in the Senate, one which would require all text messages to be archived and available to law enforcement. This under-the-radar item is a proposal and yet to be brought to the Congressional floor. Let's hope Leahy can muster enough support to put the kibosh on this proposed legislation.

And let's not forget the thousand pound elephant in the room: Very much missing from the speech was an update on whether Congress will push for new versions of SOPA and PIPA. Leahy himself seems to have one foot in the pool and one out when you look at his record. This is the Senator who wrote PIPA and COICA (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act). Yet he was also behind a failed FISA amendment reform that would have shortened the law and decreased the enforcement period to three years -- which would have been good. Based on this track record, either he erred and learned from these past mistakes...or we're all buying what he's selling. And it's not worth it. Fingers crossed the truth is the former, not the latter. 

Today, Friday, is Internet Freedom Day. And as the the world celebrates the life of the too-soon-departed Aaron Swartz and the one year anniversary of the Internet blackout victory against SOPA and PIPA, big change looms. Let's hope Leahy has our best interests at heart when it comes to protecting our privacy. 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.