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Who Sends Google the Most Takedown Notices? Microsoft
nk497 writes "Google has released details on the copyright takedown notices it's received over the past year, and the most requests by far have been from Microsoft. Over the past year, Google has received DMCA takedown notices for 2,544,209 URLs over Microsoft-related piracy, with NBC and the RIAA ranking second and third. Many of the reports do not come directly from companies such as Microsoft, but via firms set up only to chase copyright issues. The most popular targets appear to be file-sharing sites. 'These days it's not unusual for us to receive more than 250,000 requests each week, which is more than what copyright owners asked us to remove in all of 2009,' said Fred von Lohmann, Google senior copyright counsel, adding it takes on average 11 hours for Google to take action."
The DMCA seems broken. No one can possibly deal with all those notices. They'd have to use an automated system or have an inconceivable amount of manpower on their hands. To top it all off, there are bound to be mistakes.
Copyright enforcement is just scary.
The real business case is no longer the software. As the article says, there are now dedicated companies who chase copyright issues. If they cannot find a copyright issue, they'll go bankrupt. If they find more copyright issues than last year (and win a few lawsuits), they'll make profit.
I guess that soon enough, we cannot change the copyright laws anymore, because the copyright-chasers would lose their revenues.
I wouldn't expect Google to have the same interest in censoring Android app results on Bing, because the relatively few apps actually owned by Google are generally released for free anyway, whereas Microsoft has a ton of commercial software that many people consider desirable to rip off, like Windows, Office, MS Game Studios titles, etc.
Recall that in general for Microsoft, software is something they create to sell to the public. For Google, software is something they give away free so that they can sell people's private browsing experiences to advertisers.
Hey! On a related note now there is a list of all file sharing domains in one place: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/?r=all-time - neatly organized.
... US-style.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Under the DMCA, more-or-less. For a service provider to decline a DMCA notice means they can be potentially liable, so unless the content in question is of particually high value of the customer pays very well they have little incentive to even give the contents of the notice a glance. Take it down first, ask questions later.
infringement obviously needs to be taken down quickly
Obviously for you, maybe. Copyright infringement is supposed to be decided by courts, which is not an 11 hour process.
Palm trees and 8