Piracy has always been a big issue online and quite a lot of sites have been accused of committing it. Instead of sitting down and waiting for action, Google is taking it upon themselves to weed out sites accused of piracy.
Google has introduced what it calls its Pirate Update and since it was launched there has been quite a number of DMCA requests. According to TorrentFreak.com, Google has already taken down more than 50 million sites for violating DMCA in the year 2012 alone. Google has removed more than 51 million links from their search engines and more than 7 million of those links were issued by the RIAA or the Recording Industry Association of America.
There has been a sharp increase in takedown requests per week and the numbers have dramatically climbed up since the Piracy Update was released.
Fraudulent DMCA Requests
There was also an ill effect to the Piracy Update and that is the fact that there have also been lots of fraudulent DMCA requests. It seems that a lot of people have been abusing the algorithm. According to TorrentFreak.com, a site called “Yes It Is!-No Piracy!” has been issuing DMCA requests even for content which are perfectly legal.
The company issues takedown requests in behalf of movie companies such as Century Fox, Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment to name a few. Included on the list of pages requested to be taken down are legal copies on Itunes and Amazon. Even pages on Wikipedia were requested to be taken down.
In most cases, Google refused to take down or remove the URLs requested which only underscores the fact that Google does research before taking any action. Since TorrentFreak discovered this issue about requests to take down perfectly legal sites and pages, the company that issued the requests, Yesitis.org, has taken down its site.
Experts think that Yesitis. Org was reporting perfectly compliant and legal sites in the rankings in order to boost their own. Although it is not exactly clear at this point, it seems that was their motive.
Google to Continue Penalizing Sites Accused of Copyright Infringement
Google is not yet finished and it will continue to penalize sites found to guilty of copyright infringement. If anybody has filed a takedown request for your site, you should be on the lookout. Also called the Emanuel update because of Ari Emanuel who prompted it, the Piracy Update has garnered supporters and enemies ever since it was launched.
Google has always been criticized by the entertainment industry and this has caused some content owners to hold back deals with other companies.
Detecting Piracy
Google has a way of guestimating copyright infringement and this is by making use of the DNCA or Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests. However, as discussed earlier not all of the takedown requests are genuine. Takedown requests are merely allegations, there is no proof. These allegations can also be challenged. To give sites everywhere peace of mind, Google seriously evaluates each and all requests to prove that they are genuine.
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