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Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

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Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#91

Post by arcticfox »

JimDabell wrote: post #53
mike_d wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been settled case law for decades thanks to sports almanacs. Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be. If CNW had published a book, Google purchased it off of Amazon, and paid an intern to retype it in to fact boxes - that is clear copyright violation. The fact that Google bought the data from a third party data broker who scraped CNW does not absolve them…

> Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be. It’s my understanding that this ceased to be true in the USA in 1991 and that a minimal degree of creativity is required [0]. Other countries have started following suit more recently. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R... .

IMO there's a huge difference between a list of names and numbers generated by a research team estimating someone's net worth, and a phone book.

One is a list of informed estimates, the other is a list of (essentially) facts.

Informed guesses are IMO essentially much longer pieces of creative content, just condensed into a number.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#92

Post by mikece »

jarym wrote: post #89

I only see one solution: Make Google split the search business out so that it only provides search and nothing else. That was Google's stated 'point' of their own site and they should be held to it. They are like a bad rash, just ripping off from businesses of all sizes and relying on their dominance in search and financial muscle to get away with it. Siphoning off search into its own unit would defang Google's abili…

Another solution is to make Google pay for the estimated damages caused to the website (I think it's reasonable to extrapolate growth for a few more years) as well as a massive punitive damage as well because of the callousness and deliberate manner in which they contacted the site owners AND TOLD HIM THEY WOULD TAKE WHAT THEY WANT. I hope Google is forced to pay CNW no less than one billion dollars for this obvious abuse of their position and theft of their content.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#93

Post by jcims »

teddyh wrote: post #41

The primary case here made against Google might be questionable behavior from Google, but might not be illegal, since simple numbers like a dollar amount can’t be copyrighted, and AFAIK there is no other legal impediment to Google doing what they did (IANAL). What looks far more inculpatory to me is this, on the last page: […] Because it controls essentially the entire internet, Google has endless levers at its dispo…

Given enough time tinkering with the prompt, and assuming the Wired article and website were in the training data, I think GPT-3 could probably suss out the relationship between the critical comments in Wired and the net worth website. It clearly can identify sentiment and maybe from that even infer the strained relationship of the site to Google

Seems plausible that Search could autonomously and possibly without human intent begin deranking sites that directly or indirectly surface negative opinions. At some point we could quite literally have to worry about hurting the feelings of our search engines.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#94

Post by dimsumsumdim »

mrtksn wrote: post #82
dimsumsumdim wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not trying to defend Google or its practices. But how is the activity of CNW researchers different from what is Google doing? Unless the author elaborates on their method, "Educated guess" sounds like scrapping content without sourcing the author in the first place.

AFAIK there's no other database that they scrapped from. Reading sources like news articles, documents etc. is very different from copying the database that someone else created. It's like the difference of tapping Yelp's API and create a competing service and looking at Yelp, Google, Squirespace etc. to create a restorant recommendations website.

Humans can also scrap. If CNW employs researchers, they must be using sources. These sources are not referenced in their content. Either CNW is merely making up the net worth figures, or their researchers are pulling data from somewhere to provide information about 25,000+ celebrities. If the second is valid, they aren't that different from what Google is doing.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#95

Post by sidibe »

dimsumsumdim wrote: post #79
manish_gill wrote: post #48

I have Zero respect for the Google engineers and PMs who worked on this project, scraping content without attributing to the original source, and subsequent change in the search ranking of the original source. A very bad taste in the mouth indeed.

I am not trying to defend Google or its practices. But how is the activity of CNW researchers different from what is Google doing? Unless the author elaborates on their method, "Educated guess" sounds like scrapping content without sourcing the author in the first place.

Understable not to include the sources after that email exchange because if they source the articles on their site Google could just cite those articles. What isnt clear to me is where the fake ones were attributed to in the info box. For the real celebrities it seems like they're mostly from Wikipedia which cites articles (who maybe look it up from CNW?)

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#96

Post by bryanrasmussen »

teddyh wrote: post #85
mfer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking someone else's copy written content and presenting it as your own can be seen as content theft. Imagine if a book author did that to a chapter of a book. When the one doing it can essential present the case that they should be allowed to do it or they will destroy your business then it's an abuse of power. When they are in a position to actually do it because they have so much of the power in the space it can…

> Taking someone else's copy written content […] (You should read up a bit on this; it’s obvious you have not since you call it “copy written” when the term is “copyright” and a work can therefore be “copyrighted”. The term is about who has the right to copy a given work, and has nothing to do with “writing”.) Copying text someone else has written is indeed copyright infringement (commonly, but technically inaccurate…

>(You should read up a bit on this; it’s obvious you have not since you call it “copy written” when the term is “copyright” and a work can therefore be “copyrighted”. The term is about who has the right to copy a given work, and has nothing to do with “writing”.)

Perhaps the parent comment was from some country where things are different, like the language.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#97

Post by wombatmobile »

Jefff8 wrote: post #76
tareqak wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what about those conjured celebrities I added as a precaution? All five were all scraped right into Google’s search result pages. It provided undeniable proof that after being turned down, Google simply went ahead and stole the entire database of content CNW took eight years and over a million dollars to build. A number might not be copyrightable, but what about a news article? What would happen if all the worl…

Databases have protection under EU law. https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/protection-dat... The EU is also interested in Google, and this looks like a slam-dunk case on the face of it.

Right on, Jeff8.

And when Teddyh says "simple numbers like a dollar amount can’t be copyrighted" he's ignoring the fact that google isn't just copying dollar amounts. Google's copying a data set which establishes a dollar amount as a net worth of a particular person. That's a database.

The only difficulty for CNW will be coming up with the money, time, and emotional energy to achieve a result in court over as many years as it takes Google to exhaust all legal possibilities, of which there are as many as the defendant has dollars.

The problem is, we don't have a justice system, we have a legal system.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#98

Post by Google234 »

xondono wrote: post #58
Google234 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a thing called a robot.txt.

Yes, and google has been observed several times to ignore the robots.txt file

No, this is true in general. Maybe there’s been some bugs (I would be surprised, can you link these multiple examples?) but Google respects robot.txt files

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#99

Post by mrtksn »

dimsumsumdim wrote: post #94
mrtksn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK there's no other database that they scrapped from. Reading sources like news articles, documents etc. is very different from copying the database that someone else created. It's like the difference of tapping Yelp's API and create a competing service and looking at Yelp, Google, Squirespace etc. to create a restorant recommendations website.

Humans can also scrap. If CNW employs researchers, they must be using sources. These sources are not referenced in their content. Either CNW is merely making up the net worth figures, or their researchers are pulling data from somewhere to provide information about 25,000+ celebrities. If the second is valid, they aren't that different from what Google is doing.

I answered your question about how CNW researchers are different. Using sources to create a knowledge base for something is very different than hooking up to a knowledge base that was already curated and displaying it as your own without compensating the people who curated it.

Yes, sure. It would be nice of them to disclose their own sources too but I fail to see how this is related to Google straight out copying their curated database and showing it to its own users.

Like, why are we discussing it? What is the agenda here? Are we trying to conclude that CNW owners are also not that nice? Are you claiming that CNW copied your own research and demand justice too? If you explain what is your point here, maybe we can have a productive discussion instead of repeating the same stuff.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#100

Post by Google234 »

objektif wrote: post #45
Google234 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a low bar and doesn’t fit with Googles actual mission.

Which is a lot lower than that.

How is making information accessible to everyone morally worse than being slightly better than evil?
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