Daily Mail on Google and Adele
Posted by Dave Cross
April 10th, 2011
[This is cross-posted from davblog]
Today, the Daily Mail published the most hysterical pile of anti-internet crap [istyosty link] that I think I’ve ever seen. And that takes some doing as Daily Mail articles usually combine a complete lack of understanding of the internet together with the deep distrust and fear that Mail writers have for most of the modern world.
In this article, writer Alex Brummer turns his attention to Google and the damage that they are doing to the UK’s digital industry. It’s the usual concoction of nonsense and half-truths and it contains a typical Mail conspiracy theory claiming that David Cameron is promoting Google as a good example of a digital success story because his strategy advisor Steve Hilton is married to Rachel Whetstone, Google’s head of communications. It doesn’t seem to occur to Brummer at all that Cameron is promoting Google as a good example of a digital success story because… well because it’s a bloody good example of a digital success story.
The article then goes seriously off the rails as Brummer explains how Google’s business plan is plunder the copyright of hard-working British artists like Adele and to share their work with everyone for free. It reaches a peak of insanity as he says this:
One only has to switch on the computer, call up the Google search engine and type in the name of a star like Adele to understand why the digital channel is such a threat to the UK’s performers, and for that matter our whole creative industry.
Nine out of the first ten websites which pop up on Google’s search engine are run by pirates who have downloaded Adele’s output and offer it online far more cheaply than official copyrighted sites and High Street retailers.
Claims like this aren’t new, of course and presumably Brummer assumes that everyone who reads those paragraphs will nod in agreement whilst thinking to themselves, “Of course that’s what happens – wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turns up a few pages of porn too”. Brummer relies on his readership being people who have be told so many horror stories about Google search results that they are now scared to even visit the site.
So what happens if you actually bother to try Brummer’s suggestion. Here’s what I got:
- Three links to videos on YouTube. Two of them are from her record label and the other one seems to be from Adele’s own channel.
- Two links to Adele’s official web site.
- Three links to news stories about Adele (including Brummer’s own story).
- A link to Adele’s MySpace page.
- Five images.
- A link to a page about Adele on last.fm.
- A link to a page of Adele lyrics (this doesn’t look official).
- A link to Adele’s Facebook page.
- A link to an Amazon page promoting Adele.
- A link to Adele’s record company’s page about her.
All of which rather seems to disprove Brummer’s theory. From this sample it seems that Google seems very adept at putting Adele’s fans in touch with official sources of information about her. Only the lyrics page seems unofficial or unapproved – and do lyrics really count as piracy?
There’s another option to consider here though. For a couple of years now Google have been providing customised search results. Whenever you search on Google, they take into account the links that you have clicked on from previous search results. I’m not surprised that I get a page of official links as those are the kinds of sites that I usually show most interest in. If Mr Brummer gets a page of pirate links then perhaps he should investigate who has been using his computer.
Categories: Internet |
I get similar results, the main difference being Wikipedia – is that pirated?
Oh, I’m pretty sure I got the Wikipedia page too. It just fell off the list as I was writing it down.
And, no, the Wikipedia isn’t pirated and doesn’t point to any dubious resources (they’re very careful about that).
Adele’s album has sold one and a half million copies in the UK and is certain to reach the two million mark before the end of the year. I reckon that she’s probably rather chuffed.
Since when was Google a digital channel? And why write this article about Google and not include the other search engines? (Don’t laugh).
Some of this reads as though it’s come straight from the record industry/rights holder lobbyists, how many lunches has this bloke had with Fergal Sharky.
The fact that Brummer’s article pops up when you type Adele’s name into the google search engine shows just how good the Mail have come at playing the google game. They can write bullshit or copy and paste bullshit about a celebrity or a topical issue in the knowledge that it will drive hundreds of thousands of people to the Mail on-line site.
Out of all the types of bullshit stories, this is one of the better ones.
Genreally you have to hunt around for alternatives, or read reports that the mail claim to have quoted. But with this one you can google a term and debunk it within 20 secs.
Perhaps Brummer thinks Youtube counts as piracy. Given how techno-stupid the mail is, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.
@ Crispin Fisher yes exactly. Google recently tweaked their algorithm to supposedly deal with the blatant hit whores and content farms, which is basically all the Daily Fail is. Not only have they escaped this but according to a Guardian article the other day, they’ve actually benefited out of it. Quite the irony given how much The Wail hates Google.
Publishers are sort of protective of their lyrics, but don’t really seem to consider it a life-or-death copyright issue.
The google line isn’t new – 10 years ago I listened to a speaker (from one of the major childrens charities) who boldly told us that ‘if you google smarties the first 5 hits are to a well known paedophile ring’.
The audience lapped it up. And presumably went away campaigning for this evil internet thing to be banned.
Of course I’ve never been able to verify even the existence of such a group let alone have them come up as the first hits on google.
The Mail has become the world’s second most-popular news website: http://bit.ly/el3PcA
They can pretty much thank Google for that and their hit whoring site engineers.
Of course Google tailors searches for the user who has typed the search query. If a journo is getting lists of pirate music sites, perhaps that is because he habitually searches for pirate music sites.
He probably put + Rapidshare at the end of his search.
Of course, this is the newspaper that once proudly proclaimed that using Facebook increases your risk of getting cancer (or, as it was invariably reported, “Facebook causes cancer!”): http://is.gd/St5dbK
I have to wonder though: although it is allegedly the world’s second most popular news site, is that genuine readers or people flocking to it to laugh at and satirise their latest editorial by someone with the same philosophical outlook on life as Chicken Licken? Never mind Daily Fail, how about The Daily Wail?!
How is music piracy even Google’s fault to begin with? That’s like blaming the Yellow Pages for the existence of bad plumbers.
In my work capacity I regularly hear site woners cheering “I’m on page 1 of Google” and have to burst their balloon by pointing out that Google tailors search results to the individual. (See Scroogle for more realistic results.)
Thus the presence of those pirating sites is more a reflection of the “journalist’s” browsing activities than necessarily of the prevalence of pirated content per se..