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Who Sends Google the Most Takedown Notices? Microsoft

Posted by Soulskill on from the going-for-the-high-score dept.

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."

9 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. potential iffyness by MrDoh! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Must be an odd position to be in where your competitor can take down the main thing you do. Ok, infringement obviously needs to be taken down quickly, but I can see there being a huge issue here later.
    Is there something that matches this in Bing? And if there is, wonder how quickly Google will take down pirate apk sites.

    Ok, had to pause a moment there. Doing a search for;
    "free pirate android apps"
    on google/bing produces wildly different results as you'd imagine. Wonder how this will go.

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    Waiting for an amusing sig.
    1. Re:potential iffyness by dc29A · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Strange that MS doesn't remove from Bing the same links it asks Google to take out.

    2. Re:potential iffyness by Inda · · Score: 1, Interesting

      There's nothing strange at all.

      The only reason those results are on Bing is because Microsoft scraped Google's search results.

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      This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
    3. Re:potential iffyness by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Recall instead that the software is not created just for sale to the general public. It is also there to be pirated, a pirate copy of Windows is M$ second favorite operating system.

      It's also not just desirable from M$ perspective to encourage piracy of their products but also part of their marketing. It's easier for M$ to compete with Linux where there is piracy than where there is not. Every Windows user, pirated or not, is not a Linux user. It keeps Linux out of the picture. we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.

      It also makes sense from a marketshare perspective. When you have a monopoly, the most valuable thing you have is the monopoly itself. Preservation of the monopoly gives a better return on investment than anything else. Most of M$ revenues would dry up without the monopoly rents.

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      Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  2. DDOS by any other name by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Of course not. The goal is less about taking down the sites and more about burning Google's resources through excessive takedown requests. Google ought to queue the requests in a FIFO pipe and process a small number per day. Maybe they could require payment for the processing, which does cost Google real money, to offset the time and resources wasted.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
    1. Re:DDOS by any other name by atlasdropperofworlds · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It could be more insidious than that. By flooding Google with requests, Google will automate the process. In fact, I bet they already have. This means less human oversight, and a greater chance that anything can be censored.

  3. Re:The lawsuit itself became a business case by tqk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As the article says, there are now dedicated companies who chase copyright issues.

    Yes, and doesn't that strike you as just plain sick?

    It's interesting how many of these requests are received, but I couldn't easily find out how many of them were declined. Does anyone have a link to this information?

    I did not RTFA, but I did read this, which seemed a good overall review of the features. It looks like a very nice thing for Google to put out.

    That said, I'll stick with Ixquick, thanks.

    --
    "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
  4. non US search engines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    why isn't there a google alternative that is worth a damn, that isn't in the US, isn't hosted in the US and doesn't use a US-controlled TLD, and thus, not subject to this DMCA bullshit?

  5. Where will I then get a Windows ISO by thue · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Computers nowadays don't come with a Windows CD. So if a virus messes up my computer, what am I to do?

    I have always downloaded a Windows ISO off the Pirate Bay, which I do with an entirely clean conscience, since I own a valid Windows Key, which Microsoft also checks when I actually install windows. Websites like the Pirate Bay is what makes it actually a tiny bit user-friendly to use Windows, in spite of Microsoft.