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It’s not shutting them down as many in Hollywood would like but if a site is repeatedly posting pirated material then Google announced today that they’re going to flag it. “Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices received for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results,” Amit Singhal, the company’s SVP, Engineering wrote this morning on Google’s blog. Singhal added that “we’re receiving and processing more copyright removal notices every day than we did in all of 2009 — more than 4.3 million URLs in the last 30 days alone.” Earlier this year at the AllThingsD conference WME’s Ari Emanuel emphasized that he wanted Google to start helping Hollywood out with piracy and “start filtering when people are stealing our product internationally.” The Motion Picture Association of America has long advocated Google and other search engines addressing the issue of piracy and copyrighted material and the accessibility of such material in search results. Today the MPAA’s Michael O’Leary had this to say about the new move by Google:
“We are optimistic that Google’s actions will help steer consumers to the myriad legitimate ways for them to access movies and TV shows online, and away from the rogue cyberlockers, peer-to-peer sites, and other outlaw enterprises that steal the hard work of creators across the globe. We will be watching this development closely – the devil is always in the details – and look forward to Google taking further steps to ensure that its services favor legitimate businesses and creators, not thieves.”
Related: Ari Emanuel Responds To Google On Piracy
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.
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Good thing there aren’t other search engines.
Oh, wait, there’s a giant hole in the plan.
Oh, please, this is just Google’s way of skirting the issue and trying to have it both ways. The fact that the MPAA doesn’t seem to realize this proves how clueless they are when it comes to the internet.
LOL
Google’s new rules can easily be abused.
Many political ads these days employ bits of video from here or there that are incorporated into a free speech statement. Politicians can easily copyright their work and then harass anyone who uses the work in a way they don’t like. Even if the use of the content falls under Fair Use rules, copyright + a flurry of copyright notices = removal from Google’s search engine AKA suppression of speech. The rich guy with a team of lawyers isn’t going to get hurt much by this, but the individual mash-up artist making a political statement is another story.
And it’s not just politicians. Groups such as the Scientologists are already very aggressive on the Internet. This just gives them another tool to suppress the suppressives.
It doesnt remove the site from their search listings, just lowers it. So instead of people staying on page one, they will move to page two of the search results to find the content they are searching for.
Have you ever tried to prove to Google that you’re the copyright holder if someone makes a claim against you when it should be the complainant’s job to prove you aren’t? Hell, have you ever tried to just send Google an e-mail?
If google is using “copyright removal notices” as criteria for flagging sites, I hope they’re planning to flag and demote their own youtube links. Somehow I don’t think they will.
They should start with YouTube. Seriously, anyone notice the rampant pirating/uploading of full features is just a few clicks away when searching any related material?
Why aren’t the studios being more hard core about YouTube’s blatant “ignorance” of this matter?
There’s gonna be a lot of protesting against this act and it will cause Google to have second thoughts.
This is laughable. Anyone searching for content like this uses a targeted search which will, at the least, neuter the “penalty.” Those that don’t do that, will soon learn how to do that. No doubt by tomorrow someone will post how to get around this, if they have not done it already.
Why not think of more creative solutions that enable the copyright holders to cash in on the pirated content pronto? (Bad Russian copy of blockbuster $ .99 for your viewing pleasure on date of release. Save even more by watching film with subtitles in foreign language (not sure which, take a chance!), $ .49! FREE if you click on ads or subscribe to our newsletter and agree to be spammed!) Let’s create GOOGLE PIRATES, slam some primo ads next to the content and Google Adwords on the video itself and off we go, rolling in pirate dough. Don’t take it down, make money from it. That’s the point, right? Discover, call google liason, call video host liason if other than Youtube, done within 24 hours. No money wasted on lawyers each and every time (contracts beforehand, of course). Could it be that easy? Will the pirates sue? Back to more traditional 2012 thinking…
Is it really a search engine’s job to manipulate and censor results now? There is such a thing as going overboard with the need to control, just look at the pirate hounds that are chasing after unlincensed use of music on YOUTUBE. It’s bloody ridiculous. Case in point: A group of girls made a (not exactly professional looking) video about exercising with a hoola hoop. There was music playing in the background. You know how this story ends, right? Über-Grinch Music Corp had to rain on their and their prospective viewers’ parade. All I can think is “spirit of the law” anyone?
Google already compromised SE integrity by giving people the opportunity to rate sites up/down.
Of course the sometimes very naive fellows of Google didn’t think about all the plants now busy to uprate their employers’ multitudes of sites (TV channels, for example) and downrate all the *non-affiliated* sites that offer original commentary and perhaps *gasp* criticism. After all, they take away eyeballs and eyeballs equal money, as their owners are bound to buy DVDs and such right off the site or click on ads.
Why anybody is still surprised that stuff tanks that seemed to have great buzz is beyond me. Perhaps some people have trouble separating their own artificially created hype from what’s really going on among the consumers (the non-plants). Can’t blame them, it must take an army to separate real numbers from commissioned BS. That’s also the reason why most hitlists aren’t worth the time it takes to even look at them.
And while we are on the subject. Two things: Paulo Coelho (google and read what he thinks) and the miracle of PIRACY AS AN EFFECTIVE FORM OF PR (works only if your stuff *doesn’t suck* too much, sorry)
(Let’s take a walk on memory lane. Example: Before the BIG OBSESSION started, fans of TV-series felt free to make videos with fave scenes from their object of affection, they spliced and cut, they added music and whatnot. It was great fun, the community was strong and the creative juices were flowing. Everybody talked about the series and characters constantly, it was a huge love fest. Healthy ratings.
But no, can’t have that. Down with the fan-created content! They are copyright infringers! Instead, let the producer talk in a forum and let’s create our own promo and PAY for that. What? The ratings are going south?! What gives? Must be those damn pirates.
A few years later and the cost for (previously free, fan-created) promotion must be immense. Now cast, producers, writers — everybody needs to have a twitter or Fakebook account or both and content must be produced to put up there.) End of memory lane.
If anything, this new rule makes the pirate-hounds’ job harder, not easier.
@observer – clearly, you aren’t very good at observing and noticing change. I’m rather surprised by how much effort, man hours and money Google seems to invest in policing content on YOUTUBE. After all, every uploader is required to make a statement re: copyright when he/she uploads a video. That and acting on complaints should be all that can be expected from a service like Youtube. That is reasonable.
Do you really expect Google to check each and every one of the million(s) of videos uploaded daily within seconds? Dear God, how much are you paying?
We are already seeing censorship and a movement that in effect transforms the WORLD WIDE web into something it shouldn’t be (also an unfortunate trend that can be observed on Youtube).
@actor — if Google continues to waste resources on such highly controversial stuff as outlined above, we might see the end of what pretty much is a monopoly. Turning back time might seem like a good idea to some, but it hinders true progress.
It’s a creative challenge. Don’t build walls, create new income streams for your original work. And ferchrissakes, start to think and act globally. It’s really not that hard. Paypal and Co. are at your service. What’s keeping you?
Fans no longer talk about TV shows and movies online? You must not be looking very hard. There’s as much chatter as ever, and a good deal of fan creativity as well. Corporations know how to use social media and other online sites to get free PR. it’s a huge growth area of marketing because it’s extremely cost effective to, say, maintain a Facebook fan page vs buying ads on Facebook (which means trouble for Facebook since their advertisers have realized there’s no send buying the cow when you get the milk for free.)
But none of this means corporations should not also go after pirates.
Personally I’ve found Google to be useless lately and I’m not searching for pirated content. I’ve noticed a steady decline in Google’s ability to provide relevant search results over the past few years and a marked increase in Google cramming results from businesses into my searches.
Searching for information on a book the other day gave me nine links to Amazon, half a dozen to eBay and five to the futureshop…the latter doesn’t even sell books. Searching for information on a video game gave me countless results linking to eBay, Bestbuy and Amazon as well as a link to a yellow pages search for sex shops. Don’t even know what to say about that last one except I shudder to think my niece or nephew might have at the computer.
That’s exactly what I was talking about, I was referring to general search results as well. Google results are now as bad as a search on Amazon, even with adblock. [Amazon uses crowd sourcing and pays to have humans rate search results for relevancy (just like Google offers supposed User Schmoes to rate sites for their relevancy). Too bad Amazon’s too cheap to pay employees/interns or at least pay freelancers 4 or 5 bucks an hour. No, it has to be a penny a piece, that’s like 60 cents/hr for crowsourcing via its turk.
(In A’s defence, 50 % of my frustration with amazon SE stems from the fact that DVD release dates get announced and then postponed and Amazon makes the mistake of taking down the previously existing and linked to site — and I wake up to hundreds of *mysterious* error messages in my stats. I have to waste a lot of time trying to find out what the ghost is this time — while I sit on a bunch of bad links. Plus I make no money while I play detective and I write nothing, either. The other 50 % are legit as I would rather get no results than page after page of useless data.
Like I said, Google tries to make it better with Panda updates and rating system, but they don’t take into account the bad intentions of others, here: the corporations. (I’d like to think that that’s what Google’s intentions are ….?)
PS: Hey, want to sell your DVDS? Set a release date and f-ing stick to it! No need to announce it 6 mos in advance if you can’t guarantee the bloody date by the life of your mother. Seriously. Just pretend like we’re all your sales force and try to sell your legit product by putting in an honest effort. After all, it’s free advertising, don’t forget that. Love ya and best wishes,
This is a good point that doesn’t just apply to Google, but the whole search engine universe. I recently worked with some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) people on a project and the way they can manipulate the entire process is remarkable and mildly terrifying.