New Google algorithm combats piracy

An update to Google’s search algorithm is said to make a global impact on the rankings of pirate sites.

The media giant originally aimed to roll out the change in August 2012, where it would downrank sites for which it received a large number of valid DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notices. Back then, the update was deemed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to have no “demonstrable impact on demoting sites with large amounts of piracy.” Now, Google has announced it has refined the algorithm in ways it says will “visibly affect the rankings of some of the most notorious sites.”

Announced by Google’s senior copyright counsel Katherine Oyama in a blog post, the update is part of its latest How Google Fights Piracy report. Page 9 of the report outlines Google recent $1 billion payout to rights holders on YouTube over the past few years. The growth is due to investments it’s made in technologies that monetise unauthorised use of copyrighted material uploaded to YouTube.

The report mentions the update can’t make infringing websites completely disappear from search, however. “Even for the websites that have received the highest numbers of notices, the number of noticed pages is typically only a tiny fraction of the total number of pages on the site,” the report explains. “It would be inappropriate to remove entire sites under these circumstances.”

In August this year TMN reported Google is now processing an average of one million removal requests per day, a new record for the search giant. RapidGator, 4Shared, and Dilandau are the top three sites where infringing links were removed with each receiving over seven million takedown requests. UK lobbying trade association BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) was the biggest requester of takedowns last year.

In a statement published on The Guardian, Taylor said: “When fans search for music or films, they should get legal results—it’s as simple as that. If these new steps help guide more consumers to services like Spotify, Deezer, and iTunes, which give back to music, instead of to fraudulent torrent or hosting sites, then they would represent a step forward for artists, labels, and all those trying to build a thriving music economy online.”

This update rolls out globally this week.