Google has released a treasure trove of data about takedown requests regarding possible copyright violations. What may surprise some – but is actually kind of logical if you think about it – is that most requests, by far, come from Microsoft. You’ll be surprised about the total amount of requests, and looking at some of them in more detail, it becomes obvious just how much certain organisations would abuse takedown power if they had it.
Let’s establish, first, what the boundaries are here. We’re talking takedown requests for Google search results. If a rightsholder encounters a link to infringing material, they can send a takedown request to Google. Google will then examine this request, and comply if necessary.
The number of requests has been rising rapidly, and currently Google gets more than 250000 requests per week. Let that sink in: 250000 takedown requests per week, which all have to be assessed and acted upon. More than 1000 copyright owners have sent 1.2 million takedown requests in the past month alone, targeting 24000 different websites, with Microsoft accounting for almost 550000 requests. I’m assuming Microsoft is targeting illegal software here.
I think this is a very valid system, and, contrary to what some might think considering my posting history, I’m happy there’s a working system where rightsholders can get infringing links removed. As much as I believe piracy is nothing but a logical consequence of the industry’s own incompetence, that same industry should still have a way to combat it. The notice and takedown system strikes a perfect balance there.
Google also provided some insight into how rightsholders try to abuse the system. “We recently rejected two requests from an organization representing a major entertainment company, asking us to remove a search result that linked to a major newspaper’s review of a TV show. The requests mistakenly claimed copyright violations of the show, even though there was no infringing content,” Google details, “We’ve also seen baseless copyright removal requests being used for anticompetitive purposes, or to remove content unfavorable to a particular person or company from our search results.”
These are exactly the kind of things that would go wrong once takedown power is handed over to the rightsholders themselves, and illustrates why such a system is so incredibly dangerous. They would use it to remove negative reviews, damning stories, and so on. By allowing a proper notice and takedown system to exist, a decent amount of fairness is introduced that we would otherwise miss.
I’m glad Google is opening up data like this – a treasure trove of information we can use as the debate about copyright rages on.
As someone pointed out, you can check search takedown requests for particular domain like this (change <somedomain> to whatever):
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains…
Edited 2012-05-24 22:43 UTC
Quote:
“A content protection organization for motion picture, record and sports programming companies requested the removal of search results that link to copyright removal requests submitted by one of their clients and other URLs that did not host infringing content.”
Sounds very much like The Pirate Bay was the target here
“I think this is a very valid system, and, contrary to what some might think considering my posting history, I’m happy there’s a working system where rightsholders can get infringing links removed.”
I’m not. What benefit do I from censored search results? None what so ever. Also, it’s a totally invalid system since it requires censorship to work. Besides, there was already system like this in place that didn’t require censorship (Getting the website itself to take down the content).
I agree. Google Search is the wrong place to block these things. Google does not host the content. If anyone has an issue with a website, they should contact the owners of that site instead and take them to court if necessary (and if possible). After all, how is Google able to determine what is legal and what not and how can we trust that Google is a neutral judge? They are showing plenty of goodwill now, but what in 20 years?
So what?
Nobody’s stopping one from using other methods to get links to pirated warez. Google’s not obligated to help one pirate. And Google’s not a government agency, so they, as a private entity, can censor whatever they want (until some govt declares them a monopoly, in which case they’d have to follow rules wrt what they censored, but I doubt they’d ever be forced to provlide links to warez).
That’s not really the situation here. Google just responds to the take down requests. They actually have an interest in keeping their search results uncensored (providing the best search service) but they also would risk punishiment if they didn’t comply. The Government would be the ones handing out the punishment if they didn’t comply.
I’m not telling how Google should do their results that’s what the people sending the take down requests are doing.
Excuse me but I do think this is a problem.
A problem already tackled elsewhere. None of the – private – phone companies are monopolies, but they have an obligation of neutrality (which is far older than net neutrality): they can’t filter your phone calls or your text messages, whatever its content.
We are regressing.
It allows large clearinghouses of publishers and agents to strangle the smaller ones. Want to keep the little guy from gaining ground? File a complaint. It will take ages for them to sort through the red tape and by then the critical window for sales will have passed.
Not really, it is not the job or responsibility of a search engine to censor what results are returned on a search, the responsibility lies solely with the owners of the individual sites.
The only loophole I can see is that in the process of serving search results, google have to cache the content, thus hosting it.
Caching just enough content to index and link to the original is
Textbook. Fair. use.
If the “orginal” happens to be infringing, there (at eh infringing site) your (you the copyright holder) problem.
Copyright aggregators want to use the search engine to find infringement and then prevent everyone else from doing what they did.
They should be rewarded with a system that just filters the results for them and their agents
. The pirate bay should be blocked from all MPAA ip addresses and youtube should be unreachable from Viacom!
I’m always standing confused at this. I know it’s been debated long and hard several times, I’m still not convinced. I mean, if such content is out there to be found, with or without a search engine, then if a search engine indexes and returns such content, the “offended” parties should be thankful towards such search engine to be able to find such content, and then they should go after the ones who post such content, not the search provider. In my view, a search engine should provide all the answers it can find that are relevant to a query, and should never be held accountable for what it finds. After all, it’s its main purpose to find those results. Yet it always seems that takedown req. submitters think of a search engine as a content provider, which it isn’t (except when they actually provide some processed data that they compile from other sources, but I highly doubt those contain much infinging material).
Edit: I just saw Lorin’s comment above, +1.
Edited 2012-05-25 05:28 UTC
Processing 250k requests a week (something that can’t go without human intervention) must cost a fortune, another blow to Google.
Who’s gonna pay for that? As MS is competitor to google in search space they could easily use this mechanism to abuse them and artificially make other se gain competitive advantage.
That’s the huge loophole I see in this legislation, as it may potentially make the whole search business commercially non-viable. Just mentioning something even if it’s illegal shouldn’t be punishable, that a totalitarian measure.
Edited 2012-05-25 10:28 UTC
There are actually (at least) two issues here:
1. Should Google even be required to remove links to illegal copies of copyrighted material?
2. How to avoid copyright holders spamming Google with invalid claims?
In an ideal world, the answer to point 1 should be “no”: Referring to illegal content should not be illegal in itself. However, Google may have a moral obligation to remove links to illegal content such as child pornography, terrorist agitation etc. even though the links themselves are not illegal. It is, however, debatable how illegal something has to be before Google should be obliged to remove links. Presumably, Google is being overly conservative so as to avoid regulation.
The second problem could be solved if Google charged a fee from people or organisations that make clearly abusive or invalid claims. It is not uncommon for public agencies to demand a fee up front for complains, but where the fee is paid back if the complaint is found valid. If the fee is low enough that it does not prevent people from complaining if they do, indeed, have valid complaints, and it is possible to appeal the decision, it is not a major obstacle. But it discourages blatant abuse and groundless claims, which is the reason such fees exist in the first place. Whether Google would be legally able to charge such fees is another matter, though. I suppose they could always fall back on suing companies that make a large number of abusive claims for anticompetitive behaviour, but such trials could end up being very expensive.
actually, i thought church of scientology would have been #1
do the copyright holders need to prove that they own the copyright of something they submit a request for removal for, or do they just get acted upon without any proof?