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Google's latest DMCA takedown data shows that the number of takedown requests have increased tenfold. In the short 6 month that Google started making DMCA takedown data available publicly, requests have jumped from 1.2 million per month, to well over 12 million.
But despite the enormous amount of resources Google devotes to examining and processing these takedown notices, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the copyright lobbyists for the movie industry, says Google still isn't doing enough.
While both Google and the MPAA agree that the current process does not seem to be workable, both disagree strongly as to what should be done next. While Google expresses concern about the collateral damage and wants lawmakers to "consider the collateral impact copyright regulation has on the flow of information online", the MPAA says that Google should go into the opposite direction and start permanently censoring websites the lobby group deems unacceptable.
"By Google's own accounting, millions of times each week creators are forced to raise a complaint with Google that the company is facilitating the theft of their work and ask that the infringing work or the link to that work be removed. Often, even when the links are removed, they pop right back up a few hours later. That’s not a reasonable - or sustainable - system for anyone," said Marc Miller, the MPAA's Senior Vice President for internet content protection.
Miller also described the process of finding infringing content and submitting requests as "cumbersome", which is why the companies tasked with this have often been accused of cutting corners in a bid to expedite the process. This has led to perfectly legitimate pages being requested for removal, one high profile incident recently saw Warner Bros. trying to remove the IMDb page for one of their "Wrath of the Titans" movie. To protect the content creators from themselves, Google now also have to automatically white-list certain URLs they know absolutely to be legitimate. They have also started publishing the percentage of requests for which no action is taken, either because the page in question has already been removed, or if the page is considered to be legitimate.
While the in-fighting between those that appears to be on the same side of the war to protect intellectual property wages on, those on the other side of the battle-lines, the so called "piracy websites", appear nonchalant about the enormous undertaking by both Google and the content creators filing millions of notices each month. Both The Pirate Bay and isoHunt played down Google's role in providing traffic to these and other related websites, saying that very little traffic to their websites actually come from Google (with most of it being people simply searching for the name/domain name of these websites).
So despite the gargantuan efforts by both content creators and Google, traffic to sites like The Pirate Bay and isoHunt seems unaffected, and can never be affected to a degree to the satisfaction of the MPAA if Google remains their point of attack.
But despite the enormous amount of resources Google devotes to examining and processing these takedown notices, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the copyright lobbyists for the movie industry, says Google still isn't doing enough.
While both Google and the MPAA agree that the current process does not seem to be workable, both disagree strongly as to what should be done next. While Google expresses concern about the collateral damage and wants lawmakers to "consider the collateral impact copyright regulation has on the flow of information online", the MPAA says that Google should go into the opposite direction and start permanently censoring websites the lobby group deems unacceptable.
"By Google's own accounting, millions of times each week creators are forced to raise a complaint with Google that the company is facilitating the theft of their work and ask that the infringing work or the link to that work be removed. Often, even when the links are removed, they pop right back up a few hours later. That’s not a reasonable - or sustainable - system for anyone," said Marc Miller, the MPAA's Senior Vice President for internet content protection.
Miller also described the process of finding infringing content and submitting requests as "cumbersome", which is why the companies tasked with this have often been accused of cutting corners in a bid to expedite the process. This has led to perfectly legitimate pages being requested for removal, one high profile incident recently saw Warner Bros. trying to remove the IMDb page for one of their "Wrath of the Titans" movie. To protect the content creators from themselves, Google now also have to automatically white-list certain URLs they know absolutely to be legitimate. They have also started publishing the percentage of requests for which no action is taken, either because the page in question has already been removed, or if the page is considered to be legitimate.
While the in-fighting between those that appears to be on the same side of the war to protect intellectual property wages on, those on the other side of the battle-lines, the so called "piracy websites", appear nonchalant about the enormous undertaking by both Google and the content creators filing millions of notices each month. Both The Pirate Bay and isoHunt played down Google's role in providing traffic to these and other related websites, saying that very little traffic to their websites actually come from Google (with most of it being people simply searching for the name/domain name of these websites).
So despite the gargantuan efforts by both content creators and Google, traffic to sites like The Pirate Bay and isoHunt seems unaffected, and can never be affected to a degree to the satisfaction of the MPAA if Google remains their point of attack.