The good: Google to Demote Sites With 'High Number' of Copyright Complaints

Starting next week, Google will roll out a change to its search ranking that demotes websites that have received a high number of valid copyright removal notices.

Sites that have been cited for containing copyrighted material "may appear lower in our results," Amit Singhal, senior vice president of engineering, wrote in a blog post. "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 from Spotify."

Singhal insisted that Google will not remove websites from search entirely "unless we receive a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner." The search giant will also continue to provide counter-notice tools to those affected in case they want to fight the takedown requests.

Google has come under fire in recent years for facilitating piracy via its search engine and YouTube. Google released an updated copyright plan in Dec. 2010, and said last year that it was making "considerable progress" on those goals.

In May, the search giant announced plans to disclose the number of copyright-related takedown requests it receives on a daily basis. Singhal said today that "we're now receiving and processing more copyright removal notices every day than we did in all of 2009 - more than 4.3 million URLs in the last 30 days alone."

"We will now be using this data as a signal in our search rankings," he said, but stressed that "only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2408341,00.asp

The good: Google to Demote Sites With 'High Number' of Copyright Complaints

The good: Google to Demote Sites With 'High Number' of Copyright Complaints

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