News Blog

A copy of Google CEO Eric Schmidt's speech is available at YouTube

(Credit: YouTube)

LAS VEGAS--A year ago Wednesday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt delighted an audience of TV and radio broadcasters when he promised to roll out a system that would mean the end of piracy at YouTube.

"We are in the process of developing tools which are called 'Claim Your Content,'" Schmidt said at the National Association of Broadcasters 2007 conference. "If people tell us this is a licensed copy, our computers will automatically detect that an illegal copy has been uploaded and then automatically delete it."

Schmidt went on to say YouTube was "close to turning this (system) on" and once that happened, copyright violation at the site "becomes a moot issue." But following through on that promise has proven a challenge.

Executives with two entertainment companies that provide YouTube with feedback on its Video Identification system said the company's filtering technology has fared well at times but is nowhere near perfect and overall test results are "inconclusive." The sources, who requested anonymity because of the ongoing relationship with YouTube, added that managers at the video-sharing site continue to try and refine the system.

YouTube defended its efforts to protect copyright.

"Since launching in October, our Video Identification system has shown terrific results in its comprehensiveness, accuracy, and scalability," a YouTube spokeswoman said in an e-mail. "Over 100 partners from independent content creators to large media companies are currently using Video ID to easily manage their content. Many have found it to be a helpful tool in generating revenue and exposure for their content in the world's largest online video community."

For a long time, numerous copyright owners accused YouTube and Google of profiting from piracy and deliberately dragging their feet in developing a way to cleanse the site. They argued that the availability of professionally created content--uploaded by users--is what draws people to YouTube and without that the site would lose much of its luster. YouTube has always denied the accusations.

Nonetheless, the controversy has damaged some of Google's relationships in Hollywood.

Viacom, parent company of MTV and Paramount Pictures, filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google last year. That case is expected to last years before being resolved and it could help decide what, if anything, a Web site's responsibilities are when it comes to policing for copyright violations.

Copyright clips abound
Certainly at this point, it's hard to see much change at YouTube since launching Video ID.

Available on the site are literally countless clips from feature films and TV shows produced by small production companies as well as the largest entertainment conglomerates--including Viacom.

Key into YouTube's search field the names of the last five Academy Award winners in the best picture category and scenes from each will appear. Want to watch the first 10 minutes of the gangster flick, The Departed? They're there. Someone else posted a series of 12 separate scenes from the film, presumably to get around YouTube's 10-minute clip limit.

Fans of Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby can watch the "Mo cuishle" episode on YouTube as well as the coin toss scene from last year's best picture winner No Country For Old Men.

Identifying video is not easy, YouTube execs have long said. About 10 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute. In addition to policing an enormous volume of video, YouTube must first obtain high-quality copies so it can create a digital fingerprint of the film or show. Ideally, the automated system will recognize when someone uploads an unauthorized copy.

While copyright videos are still plentiful on YouTube, there are seemingly fewer complaints from Hollywood. The sources who are part of YouTube's testing say the entertainment industry has shown a willingness to give YouTube time to improve filtering.

Some content owners may have also concluded that some degree of piracy is inevitable.

"We still see our content pop up on YouTube," CNN.com Executive Producer Sandy Malcolm told the Associated Press this week. "You deal with it. You try to work with them on rights and things, but I don't think you can completely stop it. You just try to beat the tide and try to get your content out as fast as you can."

Google execs continue to say they respect copyright and are working to protect it. Schmidt said protecting copyright was in Google's best interest.

"We are critically dependent upon the production of copyright content," Schmidt told the NAB audience a year ago. "Literally, people come to Google to get to somewhere where there is something of value. It's very important that we not violate copyright."

Peter Gabriel wants to save Internet users from drowning in information

(Credit: Petergabriel.com)

Internet users are awash in information every time they search for new videos, music, or books online, says rocker Peter Gabriel.

One of the founders of the rock group Genesis and the creator of the iconic solo album So, is an investor in The Filter, a recommendation engine that now offers to help users cut through clutter on the Web and find the kind of content that will appeal to them.

Until now, The Filter has operated mostly in Europe as a music discovery service. A redesigned site is now offering to find a much wider array of content, Gabriel told CNET News.com on Monday. On Tuesday, the service is scheduled to begin allowing invitees to help test the site, which will be opened to the public sometime next month.

"When you drown people in an ocean of information, you've got to give them navigation tools," Gabriel said. "I know that there is better stuff out there than what I generally am exposed to...So if I have a sort of intelligent ally working with me 24 hours a day, I think I have a much better chance of getting the stuff that will entertain, excite, and inspire me."

When it comes to improving the experience of searching the Web for music and other entertainment content, technology has mostly come up short. Despite a plethora of specially designed search engines, it's still not easy to find material that appeals to you. Certainly, few search engines, if any, provide better results than Google.

According to Gabriel, The Filter's system sizes up a lot of information before spitting out suggestions.

It runs a person's past searches, purchases, and site visits through a new set of filters that may include the opinions of friends, favorite critics or reviewers--whatever the user wants. Executives at The Filter also say their algorithm can make recommendations that cut across different entertainment platforms.

Say, for example, you like film director Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. The Filter can use that to suggest certain songs.

"At the moment, there is nothing in Google that I know of that allows me to put in my taste and get recommendations," Gabriel said. "I can research and go quite deep in one direction. One great navigation tool is your taste. We allow you to integrate your taste and choices with your friend, your favorite musician, film director, or whatever."

Freedom from choice
Gabriel isn't slumming it in the tech sector.

Sure, the 58-year-old is famous for his stands on social issues, in addition to churning out hit songs for more than 40 years. (Ask yourself if we would love Lloyd Dobler or boom boxes as much without Gabriel's help in the cult film Say Anything).

He co-founded On Demand Distribution, once the largest digital-music service in Europe, before selling it in 2000 to Loudeye, a company acquired by Nokia in 2006 that provided music delivery platforms. Gabriel also helped develop games on CD-ROM.

The son of an electrical engineer, Gabriel said he has never written any code, but he loves kicking ideas around with creative people.

"I inherited my father's enthusiasm for technology, but not his skills," he quipped.

Gabriel wants to combine his music and tech passions. He says being bombarded by data only serves to discourage people from hunting for what they want.

He remembers a conversation he had years ago with a friend about how much freedom the Internet provided. His friend said something that stuck with him: "Maybe there is a deeper yearning out there for freedom from choice."

Several weeks ago at SMX West I had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with Brian White from Google. White works on Matt Cutts' Web spam team, tirelessly working to make Google's search results the best they can be, ensuring the best user experience. Quite a hefty task indeed.

You'd think that someone who spends his days fighting the never-ending battle that is Web spam might be a bit negative or jaded. If that is the case, he does an amazing job hiding it. Instead, he was upbeat and you could feel the excitement in his voice as he spoke. Here's a guy who loves what he's doing and truly wants to not only improve the searchers' experience on Google, but wants to make the Web a better place. You can't help but like a guy who's fighting the good fight.

Correction: Representatives of the The Filter say the April 9 launch date in their correspondence to CNET News.com was inaccurate. The site is due to launch later in the April.

UPDATE 1:45 P.M.: Peter Gabriel, the Grammy-winning recording artist and technology innovator, is scheduled to help launch The Filter, a music-discovery service in April.

Peter Gabriel will help launch The Filter

(Credit: Petergabriel.com)

The Filter, Gabriel and the company's CEO, David Roberts, will meet with members of the press in San Francisco on April 9th as part of the run up to the launch later that month. The company says that the site will launch with features that go beyond music discovery.

The Filter is designed to filter irrelevant material and deliver content that reflects an individual's tastes. The company started in the UK as a music discovery service, but a representative said what is being launched next month is a very different platform, which she labeled an "online discovery experience."

The service will recommended songs, videos, literature, and news based on a user's existing digital library. Gabriel will unveil more details about the new iteration of The Filter closer to the launch next month.

Executives at The Filter also say their algorithm can make recommendations that cut across different entertainment platforms. Say, for example, you like film director Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, The Filter can suggest certain music based on that.

Gabriel and Eden Ventures invested $5 million in The Filter in August. According to an August story in the British publication The Independent, The Filter, developed by U.K.-based company Exabre, can identify about 5 million songs.

A former member of Genesis, Gabriel is perhaps best known for his classic album So. He has also been an innovator in digital media, developing multimedia CD-ROM-based games, including Xplora.

Our daughter was rummaging through a box of memorabilia and found an evelope of photos taken in early 2001, about the time I'd purchased a cool new macro lens. One minute she was flipping through a series of cute puppy pictures and the next minute she's face to face with a set of full-frontal nude photographs depicting...a wolf spider. In fact, the spider was so exposed, the close-up so extreme, that Amy could not bring herself to even handle the photos so as to put them back into the envelope from which they came.

So when I got home I did the manly thing and, judging their scientific value to be near zero, tossed the spider pictures into the trash. When our daughter threw something away later that evening, and then needed to retrieve it, she shrieked again at the vile images that she could not unsee (and I was chastised for merely disposing of them instead of using our new commercial-grade shredder). Is there any possible way to prevent our children from accessing images or content that is disturbing to them or to us as parents? And should that be our sole criteria for judging whether or not we have won the war on porn?

A new Red Hat employee queried an internal e-mail list as to methods of protecting their children from accessing pornography, and through the responses I learned a few things I thought I'd share...

Perhaps the first question to answer is "what is to be protected?" We live in a media-saturated culture where some of the raciest material is to be found in all its pixelated glory of some of the most conservative TV programs (see Fox News Porn). Between the catalogs, newpaper ads, billboards, etc., there's plenty of disturbing material to go around. Indeed, when traveling through the airport with my daughter last year, she had quite a laugh when she came face-to-face with the image of a woman barely dressed on the cover of Cosmopolitan. (She called her "naked-bottom girl" for the rest of the day.) Deciding where to begin has become difficult indeed.

One popular approach is taken by OpenDNS. (Disclaimer: OpenDNS was funded by the former CEO of CNET.) The Domain Name Service (DNS) is the service that translates a URL (such as wikipedia.org) into an actual IP address (such as 208.80.152.2). By using OpenDNS instead of regular DNS, you give them permission to help you with the translation:

• wikipedia.org -> 208.80.152.2
• wikipedia.og -> 208.80.152.2 (it corrects your "spelling mistake")
• playboy.org -> BLOCKED! (if you want to filter out Web sites that serve "pornography" or "nudity")

But they also log every site you visit (part of the bargain of being between you and a "real" DNS server) and there is vigorous debate as to whether OpenDNS should be doing application-level rewrites of network-level requests. People think it is wrong (evil, even) that Google's toolbar does this. And they raised holy hell when VeriSign did this back in 2003. But if you are not bothered by the idea that whatever you type into your browser goes first to OpenDNS.com, and secondly, that when you request Site A, it could transparently and silently take you to Site B as if it were Site A, then it may be an interesting solution. As with any service that collects and interprets such sensitive personal information as your browsing habits, I suggest you read their privacy policy carefully. And you should be aware that OpenDNS is not open source.

If you want a content filtering solution that is open source (because you want to independently verify what is being logged, and you want to independently verify how the blocking choices are being made), you might be interested in DansGuardian. They have an impressive list of users as well as a blacklist you can review, adopt, or ignore. Several of my colleagues said that they use DansGuardian and that it works well.

An even more interesting suggestion was to use a firewall to force all Internet access through a proxy that can log every connection from every client computer. One family reported:

The proxy doesn't have a filter on it, but it does mail my wife and I a daily summary of what each computer asked for and when, so we know what the kids are doing online. And we make sure the kids know that we know.

I must admit that at first I was taken aback by the idea of having this type of access to somebody else's surfing history. But then I asked myself: if I am at all bothered by the idea of parents having such access to their children's surfing habits, how happy am I to be trusting that data with some third party, their supercomputer, and who knows what federal agencies?

Back to the topic of open source. One parent raised the issue that they are quite confident of the security and configuration of their own computer network, but what about the neighbor with the open wireless access point? A little education goes a long way. First, if you see a neighbor has an open wireless connection, suggest that they may wish to close it, as it represents a security problem for you. Second, if they are concerned about being a gateway to inappropriate content, suggest a mechanism whereby they, too, can play a role in filtering the content. OpenDNS might not be the right solution if your neighbor does not agree with their business model, but DansGuardian could be a good alternative. Third, use this as a positive opportunity to discuss with your children the "rules of the road" of Internet use. Those rules could range from accepting real-time oversight (how we do things at our house) to requesting specific permission to access the Internet (the parent turns on the sole wireless router the child's computer is configured to access) to accepting arbitrary monitoring and reporting. Or, do none of the above and study hard for what you plan to do when your child inevitably does access something you find disturbing and inappropriate, not to mention the disturbing and inappropriate things that porn-serving companies like to do to your computers. Worse than spiders, for sure.

James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic and a blogging resident of Beijing's Chaoyang District, has written a good outline of how China's online filtering apparatus works: "The Connection Has Been Reset."

Aside from the fact that The Atlantic has made the lovely choice of freeing its content, the news to me was that China's filtering system is working in reverse:

Xiao Qiang, an expert on Chinese media at the University of California at Berkeley journalism school, told me that the authorities have recently begun applying this kind of filtering in reverse. As Chinese-speaking people outside the country, perhaps academics or exiled dissidents, look for data on Chinese sites--say, public-health figures or news about a local protest--the GFW computers can monitor what they're asking for and censor what they find.

The article, which was briefly available here but is now apparently offline for a while, also makes the argument that full-bore IP and domain blocks may gradually fall off in favor of more refined filtering of actual content.

Something was going to give.

As Beijing prepares for the Olympics and the attending flood of foreigners, many of them reporters, expected to arrive this summer, the government's controls over the Internet have become increasingly sophisticated. But would the Olympic organizers really be OK with dozens of stories about reporters and athletes unable to reach Wikipedia and BBC?

Apparently, decision makers are indeed worried about press regarding censorship. AFP quotes an Olympic organizing committee representative as saying, "I believe you will be able to (access banned sites such as the BBC), but I can't give you a promise yet. The relevant government departments are still working on it."

The story is unrevealing, especially because of the parenthetical inserted in the above quote, which is attributed to Wang Hui. (Was she really referring to BBC? To all banned sites? To specific sites not including the BBC?) This also doesn't tell us anything about whether keyword filtration, another common censorship method, will continue.

I won't list the sensitive terms here, because I don't want this post (or on an unlucky day, CNET at large) to get blocked, but they include phrases about sensitive historical events such as the one in 1989. Too many mentions of two things that start with a T--an island with a U.S. security pact and a Himalayan region home to a famous form of Buddhism--can also get a site or individual page in trouble. Names of dissidents, especially when rendered in Chinese, often result in a block.

So if keyword filtering continues, but IP and domain blocking are turned off, browsers in China will be able to access Wikipedia, Blogspot blogs, Wordpress-hosted blogs, the BBC, and many other sites that I currently have to use proxies to access.

Keyword filtering is more directed and less likely to be detected by visitors not used to the restrictions. Here's how it works:

• A browser requests a page on an unrestricted IP address.
• In transit, one node in a network of checkpoints and filtering software (not a monolithic Great Firewall of China suggesting 100 percent coverage) detects filtered keywords.
• That node, through which data packets are being routed, sends a "reset connection" command to both the browser and the host.
• The transmission stops, and the browser displays a connection reset message, making it appear as if there may be a transmission or Web server glitch, not censorship, at work.

I doubt that the entire censorship regime will be shut down during the Olympics. Communications on the sensitive issues I noted above will likely be closely monitored for fear of demonstrations timed to distract attention from the national showcase in Beijing. But perhaps, if the government learns that it can handle things through keyword filtering alone, the irritating bans on Web sites central to my daily reading load will cease.

Just to be clear, though, I find the statement reported by AFP to be entirely inconclusive. We don't know what will happen yet. Perhaps the government will announce details, and it seems likely that some or all filtering will cease during the Olympics, but we'll just have to wait and see.

(Hat tip to Richard at The Peking Duck, where an alert commenter has noticed that while news.bbc.co.uk has been blocked for a long time, the identical site newsvote.bbc.co.uk is available. A small victory for my news-reading diet.)

WASHINGTON--It's no secret that Recording Industry Association of America President Cary Sherman despises piracy, and he's a vocal fan of proposed laws that would beef up penalties for copyright infringers.

But here's one area where he says the government need not intervene at this point: forcing Internet service providers to be more proactive in curbing pirated content on their networks.

"I don't think anyone here is trying to relegislate this issue," Sherman, said at an Internet policy conference here on Wednesday. "We're much more interested in finding a marketplace way of going about this."

By "relegislate," Sherman was referring to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which contains a section that generally lets service providers off the hook for copyright infringement on their networks, provided that they take down offending material when it's called to their attention.

Sherman revealed those leanings in response to a question from an audience member, who wanted to know how the record industry chief felt about recent statements by U2 manager Paul McGuinness.

McGuinness suggested that Internet service providers need to be taking more proactive steps to keep copyright-infringing content from being swapped on their networks and that the days of legal "safe harbours" restricting such responsibilities, such as the one provided by the DMCA, are over.

"Paul is European, and in Europe there has been much more of a regulatory approach to these issues," Sherman said of the longtime rock band manager.

Sherman did, however, say he was encouraged to see that some companies, such as AT&T, are already experimenting with network filters. But those are business decisions best made outside the framework of regulation, he said. (Verizon, for its part, said Wednesday that it opposes installing such technology.)

Gigi Sohn, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, attacked Sherman's praise for automatic filtering systems. She argued they're prone to blocking legal content, stunting fair use of copyrighted material, and being foiled by determined pirates who decide to encrypt their wares.

Sherman said he and the music industry as a whole strongly support fair use but warned, "Let's not let that be the excuse that stops the development of technology that can be beneficial in the long run."

WASHINGTON--AT&T may be flirting with filters designed to ferret out pirated material on its network, but Verizon Communications isn't interested.

That's the message that company Executive Vice President Tom Tauke delivered during a luncheon discussion at an Internet policy conference here Wednesday.

Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke

(Credit: Verizon)

It's not that Verizon doesn't believe that it's vitally important to protect intellectual property, said Tauke, who heads the company's public affairs, policy, and communications department. Rather, the company is concerned that inspecting individual packets, as rival AT&T is currently testing, poses potential dangers to consumer privacy and opens up a host of other potential watchdog duties that Verizon isn't keen on undertaking.

"From a business perspective, we really don't want to assume the role of being police on the Internet," Tauke, a former Iowa Republican congressman, said in response to a question from Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who moderated discussion with the executive. "We are leery of using these technologies on our networks."

The way Tauke sees it, if the expectation develops that Internet service providers will actively police their networks for pirated content, that could morph into other new responsibilities, such as rooting out online pornography or illegal gambling Web sites.

Instead, Verizon prefers the existing legal framework established by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, whereby service providers generally respond to requests that they take down pirated content but aren't obligated to play copyright cop.

The idea of ISPs' filtering traffic, which appears to be growing in popularity in Europe, is controversial for a number of reasons. To some legal experts, it seems contrary to the set-up established by the DMCA, for which many prominent ISPs fought hard. And consumer activists have said it raises serious privacy concerns.

In defending its filter experiment, AT&T has said it's trying to stem the flow of peer-to-peer traffic that clogs its networks and degrades its customers' surfing experiences. And there's clear pressure from some content owners, such as NBC, which have suggested that ISPs that do such policing stand the chance of brokering more favorable deals.

Drawing a smattering of applause from the lunching crowd, Tauke said Verizon's not prepared to join those ranks. "We don't want to get into the business of inspecting the bits and figuring out what is and is not appropriate traffic," he said.