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RIAA: Google Failing To Demote Pirate Websites
Nerval's Lobster writes "The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claims that Google has failed in its attempt to lower the search-results rankings of so-called 'pirate' Websites. "We have found no evidence that Google's policy has had a demonstrable impact on demoting sites with large amounts of piracy," read the report's summary (PDF). 'These sites consistently appear at the top of Google's search results for popular songs or artists.' Last August, Google indicated that it would start lowering the search-result rankings of Websites with high numbers of 'valid' copyright removal notices. 'This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily—whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed on Spotify,' Amit Singhal, Google's senior vice president of Engineering, wrote in a corporate blog posting at the time. Google, which receives millions of copyright removal notices every month, also offers a counter-notice tool for those who believe their Websites have been unfairly targeted for copyright violations."
The PDF has a very handy list of "notorious" sites, many of which were new to me. The RIAA should have Googled "Streisand Effect" before they released that....
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
"Last August, Google indicated that it would start lowering the search-result rankings of Websites with high numbers of 'valid' copyright removal notices."
Emphasis mine.
It's to their users... no doubt their idea of "piracy" includes fair use content as well... observe how they list Youtube as separate from "authorized"....
They list mere counts of average number of times a site appeared that had 10,000 or more removal requests, or 1,000 or more remove requests.
Out of millions of remove requests received by Google; 10,000 pages at issue on a large site do not necessarily qualify as "a large number of requests".
RIAA's arguments are non-constructive, and they have offered no evidence that Google has not taken successful action to demote piracy results.
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/ Google produces a report that includes a breakdown of all requests Google has received since July 2011 to remove copyright-infringing content from its search index. Google updates the information daily.