14 DAY TRIAL // The IFPI and the RIAA seem to be quite disappointed in Google and wonder why the Internet giant isn’t putting on the “Internet police” hat to fight off piracy.
Despite the fact that in 2013, Google received 235 million takedown notices, out of which it only discarded 21 million, the music industry still isn’t happy with the Internet giant.
The IFPI and the RIAA urge Google to put in a little more effort when it comes to the fight against piracy, to demote pirate sites or to remove them altogether, TorrentFreak reports.
This week, the music groups sent their 100th million DMCA notice to Google and used the chance to make demands. “Surely there must be a better way for users to be directed to legitimate sources of the music they seek instead of illegal ones,” RIAA’s Cary Sherman said.
Of course, all the trouble that Google goes through to accommodate the DMCA requests or to comply with other demands coming from Hollywood studios or music groups looking for an extra dollar doesn’t really matter. “We’ve seen no demonstrable demotion of sites that receive a high volume of piracy notices,” Sherman continued.
Not only isn’t Google doing enough, they believe, but the search engine continues to allow torrent sites to be among the first results when looking for a particular artist and song. According to the RIAA, about 98 percent of the music-related searches reveal pirate sites on the first page.
So what could the RIAA and IFPI possibly want now? Well, they went through the trouble of creating a five-point plan for Google and other search engines to fight piracy.
They want search engines to demote sites guilty of piracy, to make sure that the takedown of a song is effective and not temporary, and to help consumers find legitimate sources of music. Furthermore, they want the companies to change the way the auto-complete feature works so it no longer directs users to pirate sites.
Lastly, “make sure your stated policy on repeat offenders has teeth – why is it that, after millions of copyright notices to the same site, this is not having an impact on search results?”
This is all rather ridiculous, but the truth is that pressure will only continue to grow in the coming years.