TorrentFreak

Every week Google is asked to remove more than four million URLs from its search engine. While these automated requests are usually legitimate, mistakes happen more often than one might expect. In a recent DMCA notice HBO asked Google to censor links to HBO.com, as well as several other legitimate sites and blogs.

A new report has linked two of the world’s largest search engines to the funding of piracy-related sites. In the University of Southern California’s Advertising Transparency Report both Google and Yahoo stand accused of funneling cash to the sites, which were picked due to their placement in Google’s own Transparency Report. Also admonished in the report is torrent index SumoTorrent for their alleged operation of an advertising network.

Over the past year copyright holders have asked Google to remove 51,395,353 links to infringing webpages, a dramatic surge compared to previous years. The search giant is currently processing half a million “infringing” links per day, and this number is increasing week after week. At the same time, Hollywood and the major record labels want Google to increase its anti-piracy efforts.

The MPAA is still not happy with Google’s efforts to reduce online piracy and says that the search giant continues to facilitate a “staggering amount of copyright infringement.” For their part Google is warning policymakers of the damaging effects the recent surge of DMCA takedown requests is having on the flow of information online. Both Google and the MPAA agree that the current DMCA takedown procedures are not ideal, but the solutions both parties have in mind are quite different.

Google has quietly rolled out a new feature to its copyright transparency report, allowing the public to see when DMCA takedown notices sent by copyright holders are false. The search giant is currently processing more than a dozen million “infringing” links per month, but points out that not all requests sent by rightsholders are legitimate. As an example, Google cites a request where a major U.S. motion picture studio asked them to censor their IMDb page and official trailer.

Very soon the six strikes anti-piracy program will kick off in the United States but the RIAA isn’t just sitting back and presuming that it will be an anti-piracy cure-all. Since early November the recording industry group has massively upped the number of DMCA notices it issues to make content harder to find. From an average of between 200,000 and 240,000 URL requests sent every week to Google, the RIAA has just posted 463,000 and 666,000 in successive weeks.

After mounting pressure from international rightsholders, in August Google finally caved in and said it would start making ‘pirate’ sites more difficult for its users to find. But three months on and despite removing millions of links to allegedly infringing content every week, the content industries still aren’t happy. In the face of Google’s apparent inability to hide online piracy from its users, the search engine faces the specter of legislation forcing it to do so.