How
Google
Fights
Piracy
How
Google
Fights
Piracy
November 2018
Introduction 6
Google’s Anti-Piracy Principles 8
The State of the Industry and Online Innovation 9
Copyright by the Numbers 12
Working with Government and Industry 15
YouTube 18
YouTube’s Impact for Creators 19
How YouTube Benefits the Music Industry 21
YouTube Helps Creators and Rightsholders Manage Copyrighted Works 24
Content ID 24
Content ID and Live Streams 29
Copyright Match Tool 29
YouTube Copyright Policies 29
The YouTube Copyright Center and Copyright Takedown Notices 30
YouTube Content Verification Program 30
Stream Ripping 31
YouTube Values Transparency and Guarding Against Abuse 31
YouTube Counter Notification Procedure 31
Examples of Invalid Notices 31
YouTube’s Fair Use Protection 32
Google Web Search 33
Infringing Results Do Not Appear for the
Vast Majority of Media-Related Queries 34
Handling a High Volume of Requests at Scale 37
Trusted Copyright Removal Program Partners 38
Demoting Infringing Websites 39
The UK’s Voluntary Code of Practice 40
4How Google Fights Piracy
Table of Contents
Removing Piracy-Associated Terms from Autocomplete and Related Search 41
Making Legitimate Alternatives More Visible 41
Updates to Google Image Search 43
Google Search Detects Abuse and Values Transparency 44
Examples of Invalid DMCA Requests 45
Understanding Copyright Removals Through Transparency 46
Not-in-Index URLs 47
Search and Piracy: The Reality 48
Google Play 51
Play Provides Better Legitimate Alternatives to Piracy 52
Movies and TV Shows 52
Books and Magazines 53
Apps and Games 53
Play Fights Against Piracy 54
Adveising 55
Following the Money 56
Best Practices 57
AdSense 58
Google Marketing Platform and Google Ad Manager 59
Fighting new forms of piracy 60
Kodi Add-Ons 61
Streaming Abuse 61
Piracy on Other Google Products 62
Conclusion 63
Links to More Information 64
5How Google Fights Piracy
Table of Contents
Introduction
6
Introduction
The internet has enabled people worldwide to connect, create, and distribute
new works of art like never before in human history. Google continues to be a key
part of that growth and success by enabling legitimate distribution of all kinds of
Successfully decreasing incidents of copyright infringement has required
providing more and better legitimate alternatives to infringing content, as well
as more effective tools for combating piracy. For example, a global 2018 study
found the percent of internet users who engage in piracy has been falling, while
spending on legal content is rising in nearly all countries and content categories
studied.
1
copyrighted material and working with other industry leaders to set the standard
and explains how Google creates opportunities for creators around the world.
1
Institute for Information Law, “Global
Online Piracy Study,” August 2018,
<https://goo.gl/mPPT7Q>
A global 2018 study found the percent
of internet users who engage in piracy
has been falling, while spending on legal
content is rising in nearly all countries and
content categories studied.
7How Google Fights Piracy
Introduction
Google’s Anti-Piracy Principles
Five principles guide Google employees, as well as our substantial investments
1. Create More and Better Legitimate Alternatives
Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply.
The best way to battle piracy is with better, more convenient, legitimate
alternatives to piracy, which can do far more than attempts at enforcement can.
By developing products with compelling user experiences like Google Play Music
and YouTube, Google helps drive revenue for creative industries and steer people
toward legitimate alternatives. Google also supports the larger ecosystem by
providing the cloud infrastructure that other legitimate services depend on to
deliver fast, reliable streaming to their customers.
2. Follow the Money
Rogue sites that specialize in online piracy are commercial ventures, which
means that one effective way to combat them is to cut off their money supply.
Google is a leader in rooting out and ejecting rogue sites from our advertising
and payment services, and we help establish best practices across the industry.
3. Be Efcient, Effective, and Scalable
Google strives to implement anti-piracy solutions that work at scale. For example,
as early as 2010, Google began making substantial investments in streamlining
the copyright removal process for search results. As a result, these improved
procedures allow Google to process copyright removal requests for search
results at the rate of millions per week.
4. Guard Against Abuse
Fabricated copyright infringement allegations can be used as a pretext for
censorship and to hinder competition. Google is committed to ensuring that it
detects and rejects bogus infringement allegations, such as removals for political
or competitive reasons, even as it battles online piracy.
5. Provide Transparency
Google is committed to providing transparency. In our external Transparency
Report, Google discloses the number of requests it receives from copyright
owners and governments to remove information from its services to inform
ongoing discussions about online content regulation.
2
2
For more information, go to: <https://
transparencyreport.google.com>
8How Google Fights Piracy
Introduction
The State of the Industry and
Online Innovation
More music, video, written works, apps, and software are being created by more
people in more places than ever before.
3
This boom in the creative economy has
generated an enormous amount of revenue worldwide. Digital video revenues
are expected to soar from $64 billion to $119 billion between 2017 and 2022,
4
while global music streaming revenues have more than doubled from 2015 to
2017.
5
A separate music industry report similarly found that in 2017 alone, global
streaming revenues surged by over 41% globally, contributing to a more than 8%
rise in industry-wide revenues.
6
This trend holds true around the world. In Southeast Asia, digital products and
services are projected to contribute an additional $1 trillion to the region’s GDP by
2025.
7
Across EU 27 nations, online subscription video revenue has risen 128%
annually.
8
In the U.S., where the internet is one of the greatest success stories of
economic growth, the digital economy has grown 370% faster than the economy
as a whole, contributing well over $1 trillion per year to America’s GDP.
9
In fact,
a recent study showed that 14.8 million independent creators based in the U.S.
earned nearly $6 billion from posting their art and other works online in 2016.
10
And in Latin America, a 2018 industry report measured an astounding 18%
growth in recording revenues, driven by a 49% surge in streaming revenue—the
largest growth of any region in the world.
11
The internet has created new streams of revenue for creators and fundamentally
changed how fans enjoy videos, music, and other media; people can now
entire catalogue of an artist’s music on Spotify or YouTube Music. Services like
YouTube export cultural content between countries at an unprecedented scale,
with expansions into more countries and languages than ever before. These
changes are good for creators, consumers, and the creative industry.
3
Computer & Communications Industry
Association, “The sky is rising,” October
2014, <https://goo.gl/4geQaK>
4
Juniper Research, “OTTs Vs TV
Networks ~ 3 Winning Strategies,”
<https://goo.gl/AxbsMt>
5
PwC, ‘Perspectives from the Global
Entertainment & Media Outlook
2018–2022,’ June 2018, <https://goo.
gl/LCf3Yj>
6
International Federation of the
Phonographic Industry, “Global Music
Report 2018,” April 2018, <https://goo.
gl/bDix9X>
7
AtKearny, “The ASEAN Digital
Revolution,” 2016, <https://goo.
gl/1O8J6W>
8
European Audiovisual Observatory,
“Trends in the EU SVOD Market,”
November 2017, <https://goo.gl/
XN2Z68>
9
Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Defining
and Measuring the DIgital Economy,”
March 2018, <https://goo.gl/b5QyxT>
10
Re:Create Coalition, “Inaugural Study
Finds Nearly 15 Million Americans
Earning Billions in the New Creative
Economy,” February 2018, <https://goo.
gl/FVvtEg>
11
IFPI, “Global Music Report 2018: State
of the Industry,” April 2018, <https://goo.
gl/7CNAdj>
Digital video revenues are expected
to soar from $64 billion to $119 billion
between 2017 and 2022, while global
music streaming revenues have more
than doubled from 2015 to 2017.
9How Google Fights Piracy
Introduction
Google builds platforms where people can legitimately purchase, consume, and
discover entertainment and culture. We also pioneer innovative approaches
to monetizing online media. Google’s ability to elevate digital artists using its
platforms can be seen in the YouTube-powered explosion in the popularity of
Latin American music around the world. In 2017, daily YouTube view counts for
top Latin acts skyrocketed, growing 316% in India, 268% in Indonesia, 257% in the
Philippines, 206% in Egypt, 150% in Israel, 120% in the United Kingdom and 116%
in Australia.
12
12
YouTube for Artists, “Exploring Latin
music’s explosive YouTube growth,”
November 2017,
<https://goo.gl/kHeqVr>
13
Copia, “The Carrot or the Stick?”
October 2015,
<https://goo.gl/VXEe58>; Mediavision,
“Music Sweden File Sharing &
Downloading,” 2011,
<http://goo.gl/XTUVH>; Spotify, “New
Spotify study sees encouraging
downwards trend in music piracy in the
Netherlands,” July 2013,
<http://goo.gl/ImsYbB>; Billboard,
“Streaming Services Make Inroads
Into Piracy Down Under, Spotify’s Will
Page Tells Bigsound” September 2014,
<http://goo.gl/UGstju>; TorrentFreak,
“Spotify Helps to Beat Music Piracy,
European Commission Finds,” October
2015, <https://goo.gl/kvFuvD>
14
University of Amsterdam Institute for
Information Law, “Global Online Piracy
Study” July 2018,
<https://goo.gl/X2ddDU>
Easy access to convenient,
legitimate music, videos, and other
media is one of the most effective
weapons to fight infringement.
Easy access to legitimate music, videos, and other media is one of the most
effective ways to reduce infringement. The music industry has demonstrated the
advertising-supported streaming services (like YouTube Music, Spotify Free, and
Pandora), download stores (like Apple’s iTunes), and on-demand subscription
products (like YouTube Music Premium and Spotify Premium). This ensures that
media can reach the largest and most diverse array of fans at every price point.
The effects of these licensing deals on online piracy is clear. For example,
Spotify’s success in Sweden, Australia, and the Netherlands has resulted in a
availability of legitimate forms of streaming media causes rates of piracy to
plummet.
13
Numerous other examples show that this effect is common:
• A 2018 report from the University of Amsterdam similarly found that as
European spending on legal content grew between 2014 and 2017, the
percent of Europeans committing piracy decreased.
14
10How Google Fights Piracy
Introduction
• A French study found that the number of pirates declined by 8% from 2016
to 2017. Pirates also reportedly streamed less infringing content than the
year before and were more willing to pay for content.
15
• A 2018 report by a Spanish anti-piracy group reported noticeable declines
16
in the number of people who accessed unauthorized content. A survey
from the Australian government also found an overall drop in this number
in 2018.
17
• A study released by the U.K. regulator OFCOM noted several features of
content-delivery services that could be improved in order to further reduce
piracy, including working with creators and rightsholders to increase the
catalogues of available works, and decreasing the window of time between
when a television show, song, or movie premieres and when it is available
for download.
18
Another way to combat infringement is to “follow the money” to starve infringing
sites of their income. The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit in the United
Kingdom estimated in 2015 that shutting off advertising revenue would close
95% of these infringing sites.
19
Indeed, this approach has proven effective. For
shut down, citing problems monetizing their service through advertising.
20
Google has joined other industry leaders in the “follow the money” approach
services and promoting industry-wide advertising standards through groups
like the Coalition for Better Ads.
21
We’ve also built an ad blocker into the
industry quality standards, as anecdotal evidence suggests these ads are
disproportionately found on infringing sites.
23
The end result—a virtuous cycle
produced by better incentives for legitimate businesses—reaches far beyond
Google’s own ad networks.
19
Mike Weatherley, “Strides in the right
direction,” July 2015,
<http://goo.gl/s0Lo4M>
20
TorrentFreak, “Three Large File-Sharing
Sites Announce Shutdown,” March
2016, <https://goo.gl/OMFpND>
21
For more information on these industry
efforts, see: https://www.betterads.org
22
For more information on the Better Ads
Standards, see: https://www.betterads.
org/standards
23
TorrentFreak, “Chrome’s Default ‘Ad-
Blocker’ is Bad News for Torrent Sites,”
July 2017, <https://goo.gl/DbNqYn>
15
EY, “Un manque à gagner a minima
de 1,18 milliard d’euros,” June 2018,
<https://goo.gl/eZHMyW>
16
Coalition of Creators and Content
Industries, “Piracy observatory and
digital content consumption habits
2017,” April 2018,
<https://goo.gl/sVu6Wy>
17
Australian Department of
Communications and the Arts,
“Consumer survey on online copyright
infringement 2018,” August 2018,
<https://goo.gl/nsWDbZ>
18
IDATE, “Online Content Study:
Changes in the distribution, discovery,
and consumption of lawful and
unauthorised online content,”
November 2015,
<https://goo.gl/PYxmg2>
11How Google Fights Piracy
Introduction
Copyright by the Numbers
12
$3 Billion+
$1.8 billion+
$100 Million+
9,000
+
The amount YouTube has paid rightsholders who
have monetized use of their content in other videos
through Content ID.
From Oct 2017 to Sep 2018, YouTube paid out over $1.8
billion in ad revenue to the music industry. The music
industry has earned over $6 billion in total ad revenue
from YouTube.
The amount we’ve invested in building Content ID,
including stang and computing resources.
The number of paners using Content ID to manage
and monetize their works. These paners
include major network broadcasters, movie studios,
music publishers, and record labels. They have provid-
ed 80 million+ active reference les for our Content ID
database.
Revenue We
Have Generated
Scope of
OurEo
Copyright by the Numbers
13How Google Fights Piracy
Copyright by the Numbers
Actions We Have Taken
882 Million URLs
10 Million Ads
Evaluated
Over
Content owners have notied us about 882 Million URLs in 2017 alone. Google removed
more than 95% of these webpages, meaning we pushed back on around 54 million removal
requests that were incomplete, mistaken, or abusive.
In 2017, Google rejected more than 10 million ads that we suspected of
copyright infringement.
98% of copyright claims on YouTube in 2017 were made through Content ID, which gives
creators a way to manage and control their works without having to send takedown notices.
More than 90% of all Content ID claims result in monetization, generating signicant revenue
for YouTube paners.
of copyright issues handled
through Content ID
98%
14How Google Fights Piracy
Copyright by the Numbers
Working with
Government and Industry
15
Working with Government
and Industry
Google is actively involved in discussions with policymakers around the world on
recent examples include:
• In September 2017, Google entered into a partnership with the Centre
National du Cinema and the French anti-piracy association ALPA to build
a “one-stop shop” for small copyright holders in France. This enabled
them to protect their content with tools designed for larger copyright
owners and organizations, such as YouTube’s Content ID and Search’s
Trusted Content Removal Program.
• In February 2017, Google joined a Voluntary Code of Practice along
with the Motion Picture Association, British Phonographic Industries
Ltd, Microsoft Bing, and other representatives of creative industries. In
the effectiveness of search engines’ voluntary efforts to combat piracy
while also providing a forum to strengthen industry cooperation. Both
search engines have passed all quarterly independent effectiveness tests
to date.
• In March 2016, Google partnered with the Australian Digital Alliance (ADA)
to organize a copyright forum in Canberra with the participation of industry
leaders, policymakers, and international experts. It provided an opportunity
meet with experts on copyright reform and learn from their experiences
reforming copyright laws.
• In April 2015, Google participated in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s
Internet Policy Task Force multi-stakeholder process to improve the
operation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) notice-and-
takedown system.
24
These discussions resulted in a list of best practices
for DMCA notice-and-takedown processes.
25
• In March 2015, Google supported the “follow the money” process initiated
by the French Minister of Culture. As a member of IAB France, Google
Signatories to this charter committed to the establishment of clear and
transparent principles to prevent advertising services from engaging with
“rogue sites.”
24
The DMCA is a U.S. law that provides
qualifying online service providers
like Google with a safe harbor from
monetary liability for copyright
infringement claims. One of the
requirements of these safe harbor
provisions is that the service provider
(Google, in this case) remove or disable
access to allegedly infringing material
upon receiving a request that meets
certain requirements. Laws governing
other jurisdictions, such as Europe’s
E-Commerce Directive, have similar safe
harbors for service providers.
25
United States Patent and Trademark
Office, “U.S. Commerce Department
Announces Digital Millennium Copyright
Act Multistakeholder Forum Results,”
April 2015,
<https://goo.gl/NQZB2r>
16How Google Fights Piracy
Working with Government and Industry
•
Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), and other leading
ad networks, to participate in Best Practices and Guidelines for Ad
Networks to Address Piracy and Counterfeiting. Under these best practices,
ad networks maintain and post policies prohibiting websites that are
principally dedicated to engaging in online piracy from participating in the
ad network’s advertising programs.
26
• In June 2018, Google joined a broad coalition of advertising businesses,
rightsholders and industry groups in signing a voluntary Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with the European Commission. The MoU endorses
and apps engaging in piracy and counterfeiting. Google actively engaged
through the months-long negotiation process that led up to the deal and
was the only major tech company to sign the MoU.
27
Google is also actively working with other industry leaders to standardize
processes for identifying pirated works and to develop best practices for online
advertisers. Some examples include:
• In May 2018, Google partnered with the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance,
a group of European businesses that provide audiovisual services and
the security technologies for delivering them. We committed to working
with the Alliance’s members across the E.U. to tackle piracy through best
practices and ongoing collaborative efforts.
• Since 2015, Google has participated in the Trustworthy Accountability
Group’s (TAG) Anti-Piracy Working Group. A 2017 report commissioned by
TAG showed that anti-piracy steps taken by the digital advertising industry
have reduced ad revenue for pirate sites by between 48 and 61 percent.
28
• Since 2015, Google has participated in multiple WIPO workshops
member states focusing on the value of copyright and how it
spurs innovation.
• In February 2015, Google worked with a cross-industry group in the
United Kingdom called the Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) to
create self-regulatory best practice principles for online advertisers to
help ensure that ads do not appear on allegedly infringing websites.
27
EU Growth, “Memorandum of
Understanding on online advertising
and intellectual property rights,”
July 2018,
<https://youtu.be/5-yXMWk3cW0>
28
Trustworthy Accountability Group,
“About the Certified Against Piracy
Program,” <https://goo.gl/SQ1we5>
26
The White House, “Coming Together
to Combat Online Piracy and
Counterfeiting,” July 2013,<https://goo.
gl/86x1QE>
17How Google Fights Piracy
Working with Government and Industry
YouTube
18
YouTube
YouTube empowers the world to create, broadcast, and share video in
furtherance of its mission to give everyone a voice and show them the world.
Today, more than 400 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute,
spanning every conceivable topic from politics to comedy, from sports to religion.
More than 1.9 billion people visit YouTube every month, whether it be on their
mobile device, their living room TV, or their computer. Each day these users watch
more than a billion hours of video and generate billions of views. YouTube is a
truly global platform—local versions exist in more than 90 countries, and people
can navigate YouTube in 80 different languages (covering 95% of the internet
population). More than 70% of watchtime happens on mobile devices. YouTube
Go, our app for emerging markets, is now available in over 140 countries around
the world. As a result of this global reach, 85% of YouTube’s views are from
outside the United States.
YouTube’s Impact for Creators
Today, millions of channels from over 90 different countries earn revenue from
their videos—from some of the world’s biggest record labels, movie studios, and
news organizations, to independent musicians and creators who are, in essence,
small local businesses. The amount of revenue YouTube drives toward creators
has continued to grow. The number of channels earning more than $100,000 per
year on YouTube is up 40% year-over-year, and the number of channels earning
more than $10,000 annually grew by more than 35%.
Many of these creators have translated their success on YouTube into entirely
new revenue streams and business opportunities. On top of the revenue share
they receive from advertisements that display in front of and alongside their
new projects that range from brand endorsement deals to best-selling books. For
example, teen creator JoJo Siwa has partnered with retailers like WalMart and
Claire’s to sell her signature hair bows to fans around the world. Her followers
use the hair bows to signal that they support JoJo’s anti-bullying message.
29
29
AdAge, “Q&A with the Girl Behind that
Big Hair Bow”, December 2017, <https://
goo.gl/tqDFbS>
19How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
To further invest in and support this global creative community, we have
opened YouTube Spaces in Berlin, Dubai, Los Angeles, Mumbai, London,
New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, and Toronto. The YouTube Spaces
are collaborative production facilities available to YouTube creators for free
where they can learn from industry experts, share ideas over coffee with fellow
YouTubers, and use the latest equipment to create their next great video. Before
creators can produce a video in the YouTube Spaces, they are required to
complete a copyright training to ensure they know the rules for respecting other
artists’ work. As of August 2018, creators have produced over 26,000 videos
150 million hours of watchtime.
Photos of YouTube Space Paris. For more information, visit youtube.com/space.
20How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
How YouTube Benefits the Music Industry
YouTube has partnerships with every major record label, as well as hundreds
of collecting societies, independent labels, and music publishers, to help share
recorded music and music videos with fans on YouTube. Through licensing
agreements with our partners in the music industry as well as the tools we
offer, like Content ID, creators and rightsholders are compensated when fans
visit YouTube to watch music videos. From October 2017 to September 2018,
YouTube paid out over $1.8 billion in ad revenue to the music industry. The music
industry has earned over $6 billion in total ad revenue from YouTube. Combined
with revenue from our growing subscription service, YouTube Music Premium,
and money earned from monetizing fan uploads, YouTube is contributing a
meaningful and growing revenue stream for the industry while providing a
powerful platform to engage with fans around the world.
Through the recently launched YouTube Music, as well as the main site, YouTube
is the premier destination for fans to discover, share and listen to legitimate
sources of the music they love. For example, as of July 2018, the music video
for Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” had been viewed more than 2.5 billion times, over
10 times more listens than on the leading streaming services.
30
There are now
more than 100 YouTube videos with 1 billion or more views—there were only 15
videos to reach this mark as of 2015.
31
According to MIDiA, music videos reach 1
billion views 10 times faster on YouTube today than in 2010.
32
The music industry,
recognizing that fans turn to YouTube to engage with their favorite artists and
albums, now includes YouTube views in Billboard’s Top 100 Charts and the U.K.’s
in 44 countries to highlight trending music, as well as top songs, artists, and
music videos.
33
YouTube has paid over $6 billion to the
music industry from adveising alone.
30
Taylor Swift, “Shake It Off,” <https://
youtu.be/nfWlot6h_JM>; Headline
Planet, “Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”
Reaches 200 Million Spotify Streams,”
July 2018, <https://goo.gl/LfWFKo>
31
YouTube Playlist, “One Billion Club,”
<https://goo.gl/Q6KHJ6>
32
In 2010, it took an average of 1,841
days for a music video to reach 1 billion
views; in 2017, it took an average of just
171 days. Mark Mulligan, “State of the
YouTube Music Economy 2.0: A Turning
Point for All Parties,” August 2018,
<https://goo.gl/5oHPrU>
33
YouTube for Artists, “YouTube charts
launch in 44 countries,” May 2018,
<https://goo.gl/yRGDaE>
21How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
YouTube also provides the technology and audience that makes it a sought-
after destination for premium music events, such as Beyoncé’s history-making
performance at Coachella, which was live-streamed to a global audience and
attracted 458,000 concurrent live viewers. Another artist, Childish Gambino,
premiered his award-winning music video, “This is America,” coordinated with
a live performance on Saturday Night Live. The simultaneous debut created a
and reaching #1 on the YouTube Songs chart in 11 countries, including the United
States, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, and Norway.
34
YouTube is also a platform with incredible promotional value for new artists
and entire music genres. Thanks to famous predecessors like Justin Bieber,
Camila Cabello, and Dua Lipa, starting a music career on YouTube is now a
well-established path to success and a meaningful funnel of new talent for the
music industry.
35
In the U.K., grime music has found a home on YouTube, driven
by trailblazers like Skepta and Stormzy and fueled by channels that highlight
new rappers.
36
To support and help more artists get discovered at every
phase of their career, YouTube created a new monthly program called Artist
on the Rise, which aims to shine a light on emerging musicians and bands on
the Trending tab, driving new audiences to a diverse lineup of music’s most
important new voices.
37
Along with promoting artists and their work, YouTube also helps them reach
performances, to individual songs and albums) under one channel.
38
Services
like YouTube Music Insights and YouTube Analytics can help artists prepare for
upcoming milestones in their career, including planning releases & tours, selling
merchandise items to fans, and live streaming.
39
YouTube encourages labels and
publishers to offer artists and songwriters direct access to YouTube Analytics.
In 2017, YouTube partnered with Ticketmaster to create a feature that displays
With one simple click, fans can go to Ticketmaster to purchase tickets to
events.
40
YouTube has also partnered with Teespring to help creators sell custom
merchandise to viewers directly from their YouTube channel.
41
34
Billboard, “Beyonce’s Coachella Set
Is the Most-Viewed Performance on
YouTube Live Stream,” April 2018,
<https://goo.gl/opEV5U>; YouTube
Music Charts & Insights, May 2018,
<https://goo.gl/BUzeGM>
35
ABC News, “Pop Star Justin Bieber
Is on the Brink of Superstardom,”
November 2009,
<https://goo.gl/f1w1So>; YouTube
for Artists, “Camila Cabello: Made in
Miami,” February 2018,
<https://goo.gl/zamXxU>; YouTube for
Artists, “Dua Lipa: From sharing covers
to being covered,” June 2017,
<https://goo.gl/6uA8Pz>
36
YouTube for Artists, “Stormzy: Gang
Signs & Prayer,” September 2017,
<https://goo.gl/PcZntR>; YouTube for
Artists, “YouTube at The Great Escape,”
May 2017, <https://goo.gl/qikMYM>
37
Engadget, “YouTube’s ‘Artist on the
Rise’ program spotlights new music
stars,” May 2018,
<https://goo.gl/vSqWjD>
38
YouTube for Artists, “New official artist
channels on YouTube,” January 2018,
<https://goo.gl/NQtNqJ>
39
For more information:
<https://charts.youtube.com/> and
<https://goo.gl/TVspXb>
40
YouTube for Artists, “YouTube and
Ticketmaster,” November, 2017,
<https://goo.gl/5tghuJ>
41
YouTube Creator Blog, “VidCon 2018:
Helping creators earn more money
and build stronger communities,” June
2018, <https://goo.gl/n55G9R>
22How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
Over 98% of
copyright issues
on YouTube are
handled through
Content ID.
23
YouTube
YouTube Helps Creators and Rightsholders
Manage Copyrighted Works
Content ID
system that gives rightsholders the tools they need to effectively monitor
and manage their works on YouTube. Using Content ID, rightsholders can be
and can choose in advance what they want to happen when those videos
are detected.
Over 98% of copyright issues on YouTube are handled through Content ID, rather
than the notice-and-takedown process. Within Content ID, 98% of claims in 2017
applied the copyright owner’s preferred action, without the need for intervention
by the copyright owner.
Copyright owners can use Content ID to easily identify and manage their content on
YouTube: youtu.be/9g2U12SsRns.
24How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
or audiovisual) of works they own, metadata describing that content, and what
of audio and visual content.
action for that content.
42
Rightsholders can choose between three actions when
an upload matches their content:
1. make money from it;
2. leave it up and track viewing statistics; or
3. block it from YouTube altogether.
43
used in a video, or on the percent of the video their content accounts for. To avoid
to review certain claims, rather than taking automated action.
Thanks to the different options that Content ID gives copyright owners, it’s not
just an anti-piracy solution, but also a revenue-generation tool. Through Content
ID, creators and rightsholders can earn money even when their work hasn’t been
properly licensed by the uploader. In 2017, rightsholders choose to monetize
90% of all Content ID claims, opening up a multitude of new revenue streams for
themselves. In the music industry, rightsholders choose to monetize over 95%
of Content ID claims. We have paid out over $3 billion to rightsholders who have
monetized use of their content in other videos through Content ID. The size and
way to earn revenue from the unanticipated, creative ways that fans reuse songs
and videos.
44
42
For more information:
<https://goo.gl/A48tna>
43
For more information:
<https://goo.gl/nzDGrS>
44
Christophe Muller, “YouTube: ‘No other
platform gives as much money back to
creators,” April 2016,
<http://goo.gl/N9QoF8>
25How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
singer Betty Who’s song “Somebody Loves You” attracted new attention when
it served as the soundtrack of a marriage proposal video that has been viewed
over 14 million times.
45
Amateur British EDM producer Alan Walker distributed his
track “Fade” through the YouTube channel NoCopyrightSounds, allowing it to be
reused freely by other YouTube creators in their videos. It grew so popular that he
acquired a global fan base, signed a record deal with a major label, and accrued
46
To help fans discover
new music, YouTube uses Content ID data to display information about songs
that appear in fan-uploaded videos, including the title, artists and songwriters,
and the record labels and music publishers who represent them.
47
Content ID
user-uploaded videos that feature their content.
48
Through memes and dance challenges, YouTube is unveiling new ways to turn
songs into hits. Songs like Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” and Drake’s “In
My Feelings,” were not intended for release as singles, but reached the top of
the charts thanks to fans creating viral dance videos that resulted in tens of
millions of extra Content ID-claimed views. Similar successes include Maître
iLoveMemphis’s “Hit the Quan,” Silentó’s “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),” Pharrell
Williams’s “Happy,” Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” Baauer’s “Harlem
Shake,” Ayo and Teo’s “Rolex Challenge,” and Soulja Boy’s “Crank That (Soulja
Boy).” Artists have even seen new success for past releases, like when Fleetwood
Mac’s “Dreams,” released in 1977, returned to Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart
thanks to renewed interest in the song after its use in a popular meme.
49
After the
French national men’s soccer team won the 2018 World Cup, fans made video
tributes to their team featuring Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” released in 1978,
leading to a renewed surge of interest in the song.
50
45
“Spencer’s Home Depot Marriage
Proposal,”
<https://youtu.be/l4HpWQmEXrM>
46
Billboard, “Alan Walker: From Bedroom
Producer to Official Sia Remixer,”
December 2016,
<https://goo.gl/sCFKuN>;
“Alan Walker - Faded,” December 2015,
<https://youtu.be/60ItHLz5WEA>
47
To learn more, see:
<https://goo.gl/9Y92sG>
48
To learn more, see:
<https://youtu.be/QuOn93KPIr4>
49
Billboard, “A Meme Pushes Fleetwood
Mac’s ‘Dreams’ Onto Hot Rock Songs
Chart,” April 2018,
<https://goo.gl/yJzc45>
50
Le Figaro, “I Will Survive de Gloria
Gaynor cartonne depuis la victoire des
Bleus en Coupe du monde,” July 2018,
<https://goo.gl/MDmz5p>
26How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
Moreover, YouTube is improving Content ID constantly, and has invested over
$100 million in Content ID to maintain its status as the best-in-class copyright
management tool. Content ID can now catch efforts to evade detection like
slowing down the audio.
51
With advancements in machine learning, Content ID
can now detect copyrighted melodies, video, and audio, helping identify cover
performances, remixes, or reuploads they may want to claim, track, or remove
YouTube’s thriving community of cover performers by recognizing song melodies
52
Chloe x Halle, “Beyonce - “Pretty Hurts
(Chloe x Halle Cover),” December 2013,
<https://youtu.be/uPwuduhx0vw>
53
Rolling Stone, “How Chloe x Halle
Caught Beyonce’s Ear,” June 2016,
<https://goo.gl/xBa899>
54
Rappler, “Sungha Jung: Growing up on
YouTube,” February 2016,
<https://goo.gl/vNYmRM>
55
For more information on Content ID,
see: <https://goo.gl/iLnmJc>
51
«Fast Company, “YouTube is using
AI to police copyright—to the tune of $2
billion in payouts,” July 2016, <https://goo.
gl/5emYdZ>
“Music in this video” uses the data and technology behind Content ID to help fans learn
more when a song catches their ear in a video.
Since YouTube’s inception, talented amateur musicians have uploaded cover
songs, helping them reach new audiences and start to create their own original
music. Teen sisters Chloe x Halle were discovered after Beyoncé saw them
perform her song, “Pretty Hurts,” a video which received over 15 million views
and was claimed by the music publisher through Content ID.
52
She was so
impressed she signed them to her record label and now they’ve released their
53
South Korean high schooler Sungha Jung started
out posting guitar covers of his favorite songs and now has a following of over
5 million subscribers, several albums of original music, and worldwide tours.
54
publishers, and performers, Content ID allows both parties to earn revenue on
55
27How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
While Content ID generally represents an attractive bargain for both copyright
to error. If video uploaders get a Content ID claim that they believe is invalid,
they can choose to dispute that claim.
56
Fewer than 1% of Content ID claims
are disputed, and of that number, over 60% resolve in favor of the uploader.
User disputes highlight areas for improvement, both for YouTube’s matching
technology and for copyright owners’ rights management practices. For example,
an Australian musician who produces original white noise tracks disputed several
incorrect Content ID claims generated by distinct white noise.
57
In another case,
a German music professor who uploaded public domain recordings of classical
music had to dispute a series of Content ID claims from various music labels,
even though the recordings were no longer protected by copyright.
58
YouTube aims to deactivate invalid Content ID reference material, such as works
659
Over the past
few years, YouTube has invested in proactive detection of this material through
a combination of automation and human review. In addition, YouTube has made
parties, such as allowing videos to continue to earn revenue while a Content ID
claim is under dispute.
60
56
For more information on disputing a
Content ID claim, see:
<https://goo.gl/6lBubT>
57
BBC, “White noise video on YouTube hit
by five copyright claims,” January 2018,
<https://goo.gl/ZtoQqS>
58
Wikimedia Foundation, “Can Beethoven
send takedown requests? A first-hand
account of one German professor’s
experience with overly broad upload
filters,” August 2018,
<https://goo.gl/9xwnma>
59
For more information on material
ineligible for Content ID, see:
<https://goo.gl/7NLHeE>
60
YouTube Creator Blog, “Update:
Improving Content ID for creators,”
November 2016,
<https://goo.gl/u4GehP>
Fewer than 1% of Content ID
claims are disputed.
28How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
Content ID and Live Streams
Thanks to continued efforts to improve Content ID, we are now able to scan all
YouTube live streams for matches to copyrighted content. This includes live
broadcasts like a sporting event or music festival. For instance, in 2018, the Fuji
Rock Music Festival was live streamed on YouTube, and the rightsholders used
Live Content ID to keep unauthorized streams off the platform.
61
Many premier
sports leagues like LaLiga in Spain now also use Content ID to automatically
detect and block full-length copies of their live-broadcast games.
62
When content
live stream until the content is no longer detected. In some cases, infringing live
streams may be terminated and the YouTube channel owner may temporarily
lose access to the live streaming feature.
63
Copyright Match Tool
YouTube recently launched its Copyright Match Tool, which uses the power of the
YouTube.
64
wish to remove. They can also choose to contact the uploader. In this way,
creators remain in control of the works they create on YouTube. This new tool
making great videos.
YouTube Copyright Policies
The vast majority of media uploaded to YouTube does not infringe anyone’s
copyright. Nevertheless, YouTube takes its role in educating people about
copyright seriously and creates strong incentives to discourage infringing activity.
As a result, YouTube has a number of policies in place designed to discourage
copyright infringement and terminate repeat offenders:
1. When YouTube removes a video in response to a valid copyright removal
notice, we notify the user and apply a “strike” to the account of the user who
uploaded the video;
2. By completing an online “Copyright School” program, the user can both learn
about copyright and become eligible to have one strike expire from their
account; and
3. After three strikes, the user’s account is suspended and all the videos uploaded
to the account are removed.
61
Japan Forward, “Fuji Rock 2018
Livestream Highlights: Enjoy Japan’s
Most Famous Rock Festival from
Home,” July 2018,
<https://goo.gl/5rzxoJ>
62
Vozpópuli, “LaLiga se vale de Google
para evitar el pirateo del fútbol en
Youtube,” May 2017,
<https://goo.gl/hP434N>
63
For more information on Content ID and
live streams, see:
<https://goo.gl/PH9SZk>
64
For more information on the Copyright
Match Tool, see:
<https://goo.gl/VRxWU3> and
<https://goo.gl/cSi4gJ>
29How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
The YouTube Copyright Center and Copyright Takedown Notices
While the vast majority of copyright issues on YouTube are resolved via Content
ID, the remaining 2% are addressed through DMCA takedown requests. Copyright
owners and their representatives can submit takedown notices through the
YouTube Copyright Center, which offers an easy-to-use webform,
65
as well as
extensive information aimed at educating people about copyright.
In 2017, YouTube received over 2.5 million DMCA takedown requests from over
300,000 copyright claimants, requesting the removal of more than 7 million
video URLs. While the vast majority of the time we remove this content, we also
or sometimes even outright abuse. YouTube carefully reviewed these takedown
requests and either asked for more information or rejected requests targeting
more than 300,000 of those videos.
56
For Google’s webform to submit a
takedown notice, see:
<https://www.youtube.com/copyright_
complaint_form>
Glove and Boots explain copyright in the YouTube Copyright Center:
https://youtube.com/yt/about/copyright.
YouTube Content Verication Program
In addition to an easy-to-use public webform, YouTube offers a Content
submit high volumes of copyright removal notices and have demonstrated high
accuracy in their prior submissions. This program makes it easier to search
YouTube and quickly identify allegedly infringing videos. With a recently upgraded
user interface and integration with the search functionality of Content ID, the
rightsholders to control their works on YouTube.
30How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
Stream Ripping
“Stream ripping” refers to the practice of converting streaming media to a
downloadable format to make copies of works, typically music. It can occur in
different technical forms—including through sites, tools, apps, and services. This
can negatively affect YouTube and its content partners, as it allows content to
be used outside of our advertising or payment ecosystem. YouTube’s Terms of
Service prohibit the downloading or copying of videos without the prior written
consent of YouTube or the respective copyright licensor, and we take technical
violates our Terms of Service, we take action, including disabling access to the
YouTube API (if applicable). In addition, we work with the music industry to
identify and respond to stream ripping entities. YouTube also takes action when
stream ripping sites are infringing YouTube’s trademarks.
YouTube Values Transparency
and Guarding Against Abuse
YouTube Counter Notication Procedure
YouTube strives to be as transparent as possible when we remove content for
copyright infringement. For that reason, we notify our users when we take action
on their videos. If a video uploader believes that a copyright owner has submitted
call.
66
reinstate the video.
200,000 videos. In an effort to reduce the burden on rightsholders to review and
respond to misguided appeals, YouTube has invested in teams to carefully review
them outright to save time for rightsholders.
Examples of Invalid Notices
YouTube takes the abuse of our tools seriously. Partners who abuse these
tools will have their access to the tools disabled. As part of our effort to help
the YouTube community and copyright owners alike develop best practices as
a community, we’ve published some examples of abusive and overreaching
copyright takedown requests:
66
For more information on counter
notifications, see:
<https://goo.gl/CKW3se>
31How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
• A major fast food company sent a takedown notice in an attempt to
remove a popular music video. The music video showed a blacked-out
version of the company’s logo in a scene staged in one of their restaurants.
We asked the company to consider whether the use of their logo is
protected by fair use, but never heard back. We did not remove the video.
• An American novelty gift company sent a takedown notice aimed at a video
promoting a cutting board shaped like an ampersand, claiming it infringed
on their similar-looking cutting board design. Copyright protects original
expression, not ideas. We did not remove the video.
• A rogue employee at a Turkish content network sent copyright takedown
notices to remove videos critical of the government of Azerbaijan, which
were posted by several dissident news channels. Although the videos were
initially removed, we later reinstated them. The content network closed its
• The grandchild of a deceased French architect attempted to remove a
video that discussed the rehabilitation of a building her grandfather had
designed. The claimant was unable to explain why the use of a photograph
infringement. We did not remove the video.
YouTube’s Fair Use Protection
As demonstrated above, YouTube sometimes receives takedown requests
targeting videos that seem like clear examples of fair use or fair dealing, or that
fall under similar exceptions to copyright infringement. U.S. courts have held
that rightsholders must consider fair use before they send a copyright takedown
notice, so in many cases (though it’s a very small percentage of copyright
In some very special cases, we’ve asked the video’s creator to join a new effort
that protects some of the very best examples of “fair use” on YouTube from
copyright takedown requests.
67
creators whose fair use videos have been subject to takedown notices for up
to $1 million of legal costs in the event the takedown results in a lawsuit for
copyright infringement. This ensures those creators have a chance to protect
their work and provides a set of helpful examples to the community of creators
on YouTube that demonstrate both the importance and limits of fair use doctrine.
67
For more information on fair use, see:
<https://goo.gl/J4t2eH>
32How Google Fights Piracy
YouTube
Google Web Search
33
Google Web Search
Users worldwide perform trillions of searches per year on Google Search. Indeed,
images, and other media. For example, between our Search and Google News
services, Google sends over 10 billion clicks per month to news publishers’
websites. Moreover, services like Subscribe with Google help these sites quickly
convert those visits into subscribing customers.
Infringing Results Do Not Appear for the Vast
Majority of Media-Related Queries
Hundreds of billions of webpages are organized in the Search index; only an
extremely small portion of these have any connection to piracy. Even for media-
related queries, the vast majority of the top search results pages show only
legitimate results. This is thanks to both our constant improvements to the
algorithms that power Google Search and the efforts of rightsholders to prioritize
and target their copyright removal notices.
Presenting Legitimate Alternatives
Google believes that providing convenient, compelling, legitimate alternatives
a number of initiatives to present legitimate alternatives to people as part of
search results, including providing advertisements on queries for movies and
showtimes in local theaters. Google also collaborates with copyright owners
and music services to help them understand how to use SEO (search engine
optimization) techniques to get their offerings into search results for “long tail”
queries where they may not be appearing today.
Between our Search and Google News
services, Google sends over 10 billion
clicks per month to publishers’ websites.
34How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Nevertheless, some critics paint a misleading picture by focusing on the results
for rare, “long tail” queries, adding terms like “watch” or “free” or “download” to
playback—sometimes for free. These types of queries are not in themselves
indicative of piracy. Second, while the search results for these rare queries could
include potentially problematic links, it is important to consider how rare those
queries are. Look at the relative frequency of these top Google searches:
68
Top 3 Most Google Searched Musicians in 2017
“ariana grande” was searched 7,184X more often than “ariana grande torrent”
“linkin park” was searched 5,269X more often than “linkin park free download”
“lady gaga” was searched 3,785X more often than “lady gaga torrent”
Top 3 Most Google Searched TV Shows in 2017
“stranger things” was searched 15,474X more often than
“stranger things watch free”
“13 reasons why” was searched 7,277X more often than
“13 reasons why watch free”
“big brother brasil” was searched 30,473X more often than
“big brother brasil torrent”
Top 3 Most Google Searched Songs in 2017
“despacito” was searched 2,927X more often than “despacito torrent”
“shape of you” was searched 2,017X more often than “shape of you torrent”
“perfect” was searched 1,732X more often than “perfect torrent”
Top 3 Most Google Searched Movies in 2017
“it” was searched 3,313X more often than “it free download”
“wonder woman” was searched 10,719X more often than
“wonder woman watch free”
“beauty and the beast” was searched 8,021X more often than
“beauty and the beast watch free”
Oscar Nominees for Best Picture in 2018
“lady bird” was searched 11,707X more often than “lady bird watch free”
“the post” was searched 10,353X more often than “the post free download”
“three billboards outside ebbing, missouri” was searched 20,274X more often
than “three billboards outside ebbing, missouri watch free”
“the shape of water” was searched 8,588X more often than
“the shape of water watch free”
68
Note: top search terms are drawn from
Google’s 2017 “Year in Search” report:
<https://trends.google.com/trends/
yis/2017/GLOBAL>; search query
comparison data is based on
searches made between January
and August 2018.
The relative frequency of any search
query can be compared using the
Google Trends tool, available at
https://www.google.com/trends/
35How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
7,184x
15,474x
2,927x
3,313x
“ariana grande” was searched
“stranger things” was searched
“despacito” was searched
“it” was searched
more often than “ariana grande torrent”
more often than “stranger things watch free”
more often than “despacito torrent”
more often than “it free download”
36How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Google does not want to include links to infringing material in our search results,
The heart of those efforts is cooperation with creators and rightsholders
to identify and remove results that link to infringing content and to present
legitimate alternatives.
Handling a High Volume of Requests at Scale
Although the vast majority of media-related queries yield clean results, there are
some infrequent queries where the results do include problematic links. For these
“long-tail” queries, Google collaborates with copyright owners to address the
problem in a few ways. To help copyright owners submit these copyright removal
notices, Google has developed a streamlined submission process built around
an online webform that copyright owners can use to submit removal notices for
nearly all of Google’s services.
69
The information we ask for in our webform is consistent with the DMCA and
from countries around the world to submit notices to us. Since 2011, more than
135,000
70
different submitters have requested we remove webpages from search
results for copyright violations. Google has never charged copyright owners for
providing these services, and we continue to invest substantial resources and
engineering efforts into improving our procedures for receiving and processing
copyright removal notices.
69
For Google’s webform and more
information on submitting a removal
notice, see:
<https://support.google.com/legal>
70
Google Transparency report: Content
Removals Due to Copyright,
<https://transparencyreport.google.
com/copyright>
37How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Since launching this submission tool for copyright owners and their agents,
we have removed over 3 billion URLs that infringed copyright from Search. In
2017 alone, about 882 million webpages were requested to be removed from
over 586,000 unique domains, or top-level sites. The number of URLs listed in
takedown requests decreased by 9%, reversing a long-term trend where the
number of URLs requested for removal increased year-over-year. Google removed
over 95% of these webpages upon review. The remaining 54 million webpages
were rejected or reinstated because we either needed additional information,
Trusted Copyright Removal Program Partners
In addition to our content removal webform, Google provides a tool for copyright
owners with a proven track record of submitting accurate notices and a
consistent need to submit thousands of webpages each day. Google created the
Trusted Copyright Removal Program (TCRP) for Search to further streamline the
submission process, allowing copyright owners or their enforcement agents to
submit large volumes of webpages on a consistent basis. As of 2017, there are
more than 178 TCRP partners, who together submit the vast majority of notices.
We have removed over
3 billion URLs that infringed
copyright from Search results.
38How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Demoting Infringing Websites
owners, Google also factors in the number of valid copyright removal notices we
receive for any given site as one signal among the hundreds that we take into
account when ranking search results. Consequently, sites for which Google has
received a large number of valid removal notices appear much lower in search
because each delisted URL can have an effect on the entire domain.
theater or being prepared for commercial release, the nature of the copyrighted
work may further amplify the demotion signal. The demotion signal helps people
from infringing content. One study showed that the availability of affordable, legal
content impacts people’s choices to watch or listen to legitimate content instead
of pirate content.
71
This process has proven extremely effective. Immediately upon launching
improvements to our demotion signal in 2014, one major torrent site
week.
72
In May 2016, we found that demoted sites lost an average of 89% of
9% decrease in the number of URLs listed in takedown notices from 2016 to
demotion signal. To date, the demotion signal has led to the demotion of more
than 65,000 websites. By the end of 2017, we demoted an average of 500
websites in search results every week, and those demotions apply globally.
We have also made it much harder for infringing sites to evade demotion by
redirecting people to a new domain.
Sites for which Google has received a
large number of valid removal notices
appear much lower in search results.
71
Institute for Information Law, “Global
Online Piracy Study,” August 2018,
<https://goo.gl/mPPT7Q>
72
TorrentFreak, “Google’s New Search
Downranking Hits Torrent Sites Hard,”
October 2014, <https://goo.gl/o7Ai61>
39How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
By the end of 2017, we demoted
an average of 500 websites
in search results every week.
While we do demote entire sites in search results, we do not completely remove
Even for the websites for which we have received the largest numbers of
notices, the number of “noticed” pages is often only a tiny fraction of the total
number of pages on the site. It would be inappropriate to remove entire sites
under these circumstances.
signal gives copyright owners a powerful tool against rogue sites. As new rogue
sites emerge, copyright owners can target their removal notices at these new
sites, providing Google information we can use to update the ranking signal.
The UK’s Voluntary Code of Practice
The power of the demotion signal was recently put to the test as part of the
Voluntary Code of Practice that Google entered into, along with Microsoft and
major U.K. rightsholder organizations.
73
The heart of the Code is a process for
testing whether search engines have met “targets for reducing the visibility of
infringing content in search results.” So far, Google Search results have
undergone four rounds of testing. Thanks to the demotion signal and our other
efforts to surface legitimate results in response to media-related queries, Google
under the thresholds agreed with the IPO.
73
U.K. Intellectual Property Office, “Search
engines and creative industries sign
anti-piracy agreement,” February 2017,
<https://goo.gl/fgwii2>; a redacted
version of the code is available here:
<https://goo.gl/zkg4AH>
40How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Removing Piracy-Associated Terms from
Autocomplete and Related Search
Autocomplete is a convenience feature in Google Search that attempts to
“complete” your query as it’s typed, based on similar queries that other people
have typed. Related Search shows queries that other people have typed that may
be similar to yours. In both features, the query that appears is not one Google is
taken steps to prevent terms closely associated with piracy from appearing in
Google has taken steps to prevent
terms closely associated with piracy
from appearing in Autocomplete
and Related Search and continues
to work on refining those steps.
Making Legitimate Alternatives More Visible
The best way to reduce piracy is to improve legitimate content offerings. Google
has developed a number of new strategies that further promote authorized works
in our search results.
“Knowledge Cards” to Direct People to Licensed Works
Searches for movies, musicians, albums, etc. often return “Knowledge Cards”
at or near the top of search results. These cards provide people with facts,
images, and quick answers to their queries. Within these cards, we’ve been
testing new ways for creators and rightsholders to quickly enable fans to watch
or listen online.
41How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Watch and Listen Actions on “Long Tail” Consumption-Focused Queries
When people search with the intention to watch or listen to media, we may show
new cards for those queries directing them to legitimate sources. For example, if
someone searches for the movie “Wonder Woman,” Google may display a card with
links to different services where they can stream, rent, or purchase a licensed copy
movie, and also appear for similar music-related queries. Watch and Listen Actions
74
To help expand efforts like these that lead people to licensed copies of their
favorite works, there is more that authorized music, TV, and movie sites can do
to help their sites be more effectively indexed by search engines.
75
Google looks
forward to continuing collaborative efforts with copyright owners and delivery
services to make licensed works even more visible in search results.
74
Because this service is provided
through local partnerships, availability
of the Watch Actions feature and
partner content will vary by region.
75
For example, Google worked with the
Music Business Association to help
publish guidelines on search engine
optimization for music websites; Music
Business Association, “SEO for Music
Websites (Part II)”, May 2014, <https://
goo.gl/xNG9h8>
42How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Updates to Google Image Search
Long before innovations like “Knowledge Cards” and Watch Actions, Google
introduced Image Search. The goal of Image Search has always been to help
people discover information through photos, artwork, memes, GIFs, and other
of these images. We have made a lot of improvements to Image Search over
the years, based on public feedback. Recently, we have worked directly with
photographers and the stock photography industry to improve our product by
encouraging people to view these images in the context of the websites where
they are found. We’ve also added creator and credit metadata whenever present
to images on Google Images. These updates give creators more ways to be
discovered and connect with people interested in their work.
43How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Google Search Detects Abuse
and Values Transparency
Google works hard to detect and prevent abuses of the copyright removal
process. As the number of copyright removal requests continue to swell, it
erroneous removal notices.
or downright abusive. A major study by UC Berkeley and Columbia found that
nearly a third of copyright takedown requests submitted to Google (28.4%)
had characteristics that raised basic questions about their validity.
76
In these
circumstances, we may refuse to remove a URL from our search results or
choose to reinstate content that we had previously removed. In 2017, Google
refused to remove, or reinstated, more than 54 million webpages from our
search results.
process as a check against mistaken or abusive takedown requests. In 2017,
Google reinstated more than 210,000 URLs to our Search index in response to
In 2017, Google refused to remove,
or reinstated, more than 54 million
webpages from our search results.
76
Jennifer M. Urban, Joe Karaganis,
Brianna L. Schofield, “Notice and
Takedown in Everyday Practice,” March
2017, <http://goo.gl/HYTDUS>
44How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Examples of Invalid DMCA Requests
Here are a few examples of requests submitted through our copyright removals
process that were clearly invalid. In each case, we did not remove the URL in
question from search results:
•
copyright complaint to delist 2 pages on Egyptian news sites reporting on
the individual’s arrest record.
•
complaint asking to delist a number of articles discussing the release of
the work in question, presumably because the word “download” appeared
in the text of the article.
• A Ukrainian politician sent us a copyright complaint regarding the use of
•
products in an article discussing that business’s attempt to make Google
delist a number of pages.
• A poet sent repeated takedown notices targeting criticism and
commentary relating to the poet’s online copyright enforcement efforts.
• A well-known publisher of children’s books sent a takedown notice
targeting the use of excerpts by a critic discussing the use of gun imagery
in children’s literature.
• A physician claiming a copyright in his signature sent a takedown
notice aimed at a document related to the suspension of his license
to practice medicine.
Detecting inaccurate or abusive notices can be challenging, and we take our
commitment to guarding against abuse seriously. This is why we continue to
invest more resources to address this issue. When it comes to our Trusted
Copyright Removal Program, we have terminated or suspended partners from
the program for repeatedly sending invalid or incomplete notices through our
high-volume submission mechanisms. In addition, we’ve built transparency tools
so that the community can identify and appeal invalid takedown requests.
45How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Understanding Copyright Removals Through Transparency
When we remove URLs from search results, we believe the public should be able
to see who made the removal request and why. Because copyright infringement
allegations are the basis for the vast majority of the legal requests that we
receive to remove items from search results, we have taken the following steps
to ensure transparency:
1. Maintaining the Google Transparency Report. In 2012, we added details
regarding copyright removal notices to our Transparency Report site.
77
Updated daily, the site shows the aggregate number of webpages we have
been asked to remove, as well as who submitted the notices on behalf of
which copyright owners and for which websites. Google’s Transparency
Report has also proven useful in detecting abusive notices, as journalists,
webmasters, and other interested members of the public have examined the
data made available there.
78
2. Notifying webmasters of removals. If a website operator uses Google’s Search
on their domain has received a takedown notice.
79
Webmasters who don’t
in the Transparency Report. These tools empower webmasters to submit a
counter-notice if they determine that a page on their site has been removed
from Google Search results due to an erroneous copyright removal notice.
3. Providing copies of notices to Lumen. Since 2002, Google has provided a
copy of each copyright removal notice that we receive for search results to the
from a number of sources, including Google and Twitter, Lumen fosters
research and examination of removal notices submitted by copyright owners.
80
Recent Lumen research has focused on how some reputation management
companies use DMCA notices and backdated websites to remove lawful but
81
77
Google Blog, “Transparency for
copyright removals in search,” May
2012, <https://goo.gl/rhNAM6>
78
For more information, visit:
https://transparencyreport.google.com/
copyright
79
Google Search Console, <https://www.
google.com/webmasters/tools>
80
Lumen Database,
<https://lumendatabase.org>
81
Lumen, “Bad Reviews: How Companies
Are Using Fake Websites to Censor
Content,” August 2017,
<https://goo.gl/eNnuYL>
When we remove URLs from
search results, we believe the public
should be able to see who made
the removal request and why.
46How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
4. Informing people when results have been removed from their search results.
When people perform a search where results have been removed due to a
copyright complaint, Google displays the following notice:
• In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you
wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at
LumenDatabase.org.
Not-in-Index URLs
While Google Search processes takedown notices for a large number of URLs
every year, a large portion of those URLs have never appeared in Google Search
results. This is because Google accepts notices for URLs that are not even in our
index at the time of submission. Nevertheless, Google will still proactively block
the URL from appearing in our search results and demote other pages from the
same domain. Some reporting organizations submit a substantial number of
“not-in-index” URLs. In one sample, around 82% of the URLs we delisted were not
in our index.
82
Indeed, in 2017, the three organizations submitting the most URLs
all had not-index rates of more than 98%. Collectively, these three organizations
submitted 312,479,799 URLs for removal, but fully 306,892,799 of those URLs
Search Results. While we will continue to act on these notices, they suggest that
the volume of URLs we block is not a good proxy for the number of allegedly
infringing links we serve.
In one sample, around 82% of the URLs
we delisted were not in our index.
82
See: “Google Inc. - Additional
Comments [Amended]” in the U.S.
Copyright Office’s Section 512 Study,
February 2017,
<https://goo.gl/CSJxX6>
47How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Search and Piracy: The Reality
piracy, commentators often overlook some important realities:
1. Search is not a major driver of trafc to pirate sites
Google Search is not how music, movie, and TV fans intent on pirating media
sites comes from search engines,
83
and if reasonable assumptions are applied,
data from this study indicates this number may be closer to 7%.
84
Further,
85
These
Communications Industry Association.
86
2. Search can’t eradicate pirate sites
Search engines do not control what is on the web. Hundreds of billions of
webpages are organized in Google’s index, and there will always be new sites
dedicated to making copyrighted works available as long as there is money to
be made doing so. Replicating these sites is easy and inexpensive, and attempts
to make them disappear should focus on eradicating the business model that
supports them.
87
Law enforcement and governments are increasingly recognizing
this worldwide. For instance, when Google signed a 2018 Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) committing to cut funding to bad actors in Europe, Vice
this approach, noting, “I have always been a strong defender of the ‘follow the
money’ approach and working actively and closely with industry representatives.
MoUs are a key pillar in the work on the enforcement of IPRs. And we see that
our approach works.”
88
Rather than focusing on Search, a “follow the money”
83
MPAA, “Understanding the Role of
Search in Online Piracy,” September
2013, <https://goo.gl/KMDQyu>; See
also: DisCo, “MPAA: Online Demand for
Movies is a Problem,” September 2013,
<https://goo.gl/1S2LdS>
84
Note that 19% refers to how many
users reach a pirate site within 20
minutes of a TV or film-related query.
It could be argued that 20 minutes
is an exceptionally long window for
finding content on a search engine. This
could indicate search results failed to
guide the user to a pirate site, and this
person used other methods. According
to this study, this number falls to less
than 10% if the time is reduced to
within 7 minutes of a related search,
and less than 2% within 1 minute. The
study also reports 42% of searches
included domain names in the query,
meaning these users already knew their
destination pirate site, and were using
search only as a navigational aid. Thus,
if the time horizon is reduced from 20
to 7 minutes, and navigational queries
are correctly excluded, the number of
sessions influenced by search engines
drops to 7%.
85
BAE Systems Detica, “The Six Business
Models for Copyright Infringement,”
June 2012, <https://goo.gl/S1XKur>
86
CCIA, “The Search Fixation:
Infringement, Search Results, and
Online Content,” 2013,
<https://goo.gl/ZVSg0r>
87
Northeastern University, “Clickonomics:
Determining the Effect of Anti-Piracy
Measures for One-Click Hosting,” 2013,
<https://goo.gl/sKsRMv>
88
European Commission, “Statement by
Vice-President Ansip at EU Blockathon
2018 on the Memorandum of
Understanding on online advertising
and intellectual property rights,” June
2018, <https://goo.gl/4CEMSL>
48How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
3. Whole-site removals are ineffective and over-censor content
Google’s existing copyright removal framework provides copyright owners with
results. When it comes to entire websites, Google may demote a site in our
search results if we receive enough copyright removal notices for it, but we do
not remove full sites from search results for copyright infringement. Although
this would reduce our operational burden, whole-site removal is ineffective and
can easily result in the censorship of lawful material.
Blogging sites, for example, contain millions of pages from hundreds of
thousands of different people, as do social networking sites, e-commerce sites,
and cloud computing services. All can inadvertently contain material that is
infringing. Even on alleged “pirate sites,” several studies have shown that tens of
everyday.
89
And even for the sites for which Google receives the largest number
often only a fraction of the total number of pages we index from those sites.
90
Further, whole-site removal sends the wrong message by favoring over-inclusive
private censorship over the rule of law. Embracing such an overbroad approach
to address one domestic law violation (copyright) will embolden those who seek
similar whole-site removal remedies for violations of other laws (e.g., insults to
the king, dissident political speech). This would jeopardize free speech principles,
removed from copyright.
Finally, removing or blocking an entire site could not only impinge on free speech,
it would also be counterproductive. Research led by the European Commission
found that shutting down a prominent pirate site only resulted in a “Hydra effect,”
where several new pirate sites rose to take its place. This multiplication of pirate
sites, in turn, made piracy harder and more costly to combat.
91
Similarly, whole
site removal from Search results just drives piracy to legitimate sites and social
networks that search engines cannot reasonably eliminate from search results.
For “rogue” websites dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeit, a
widespread number of experts, policymakers, and industry analysts believe that a
89
TechDirt, “Yes, There Are Many, Many,
Many, Many Legal Uses Of BitTorrent,”
October 2012,
<https://goo.gl/X6SMEZ>
90
For detailed data, see Google
Transparency Report: <https://
transparencyreport.google.com>
91
Luis Aguiar, Jörg Claussen, Christian
Peukert, “Catch Me if You Can:
Effectiveness and Consequences
of Online Copyright Enforcement,”
January 2018,
<https://goo.gl/PXFWq5>
49How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
4. Google Search cannot proactively lter for copyright-infringing works
infringing material and remove images, video, and text from our search results
proactively. Such a system is both infeasible and unnecessary. One problem
one place and at one time is also unlawful when it appears at a different place
and at a different time. Some uses of material are authorized or permitted by
exceptions to copyright like fair use, the freedom of panorama, or the quotation
exception. Copyrights are often licensed to different entities for different
geographic regions and may also change hands, with different licensors or
owners taking different approaches.
Even more fundamental for Search is the problem that Google does not have a
where Google hosts the videos). Google Search indexes the text, images, and
the internet in order to identify whether it is the same music or video as one
previously targeted by a copyright removal notice. Even if Google were to attempt
such a colossal undertaking, rogue sites could easily block Google’s indexing
Search up to unprecedented abuse. Malicious actors could claim ownership of
problem at the scale of notice-and-takedown, but it becomes impossible in the
mechanisms developed in collaboration with copyright owners. As detailed
above, notice-and-takedown, when combined with the use of a demotion signal
that takes previous notices into account, already addresses the problem of
rogue sites, preventing their appearance for the vast majority of search queries.
Continued “follow the money” efforts are also proving successful.
50How Google Fights Piracy
Google Web Search
Google Play
51
Google Play
Google Play is an online store that connects people with a diverse set of content
and applications from various channels including Books, Games, Movies &
entertainment for their computers, tablets, or smartphones. Play has also
partnered with all of the major record labels, publishers, and movie studios to
offer millions of songs and books, thousands of movies and TV shows, and
thousands of news sources for the enjoyment of people using Android devices.
There are more than a billion active Google Play users around the world in more
than 190 countries, presenting a tremendous opportunity for creative industries.
More than 94 billion apps were downloaded from Google Play between May 2017
to May 2018. Google Play has also expanded rapidly into new countries in the last
year: Play Movies is available in 117 countries, and Play Books in 75 countries. All
this means that Google Play is a massive boon for content creators.
Play Provides Better Legitimate
Alternatives to Piracy
Each channel of Google Play provides people with direct access to licensed
movies, TV shows, books, magazines, apps, and games, giving people compelling
alternatives to piracy.
Movies and TV Shows
major studios, Google Play offers tens of thousands of recently released
movies and TV shows. It also offers innovative features that take advantage
of the digital format to drive user engagement. For example, Info Cards may
appear when a movie or TV show is paused to provide more information about
the actors and music in a scene.
52How Google Fights Piracy
Google Play
Books and Magazines
Google Play is home to the world’s largest selection of eBooks, with more
than 5 million titles available in 75 countries. We have also partnered with
news publishers to launch Subscribe with Google, a comprehensive platform
to help publishers convert readers into subscribers and keep them engaged
across Google and the web. This is important because subscribing is often
a frustrating experience for people, resulting in a loss of potential business
payment process when subscribing to a news publication, eliminating the
need for account registration, memorizing new passwords, or entering a new
credit card. Partnerships like these foster additional ways for readers to enjoy
periodicals across all of their devices and create a new market for magazines
and newspapers.
Apps and Games
Google Play is an engine of economic opportunity for application developers
because it gives them a free platform to build on and reach Play’s 1 billion active
monthly users. There are now more than 8 billion new app installs per month
globally. From May 2016 to May 2017, the number of developers with over 1
million installs grew by 35%.
most popular apps are delivering licensed music, movies, and TV shows to fans,
including. For example:
•
• HBO GO allows people with a subscription to HBO’s licensed TV and movie
material to watch these shows on their mobile and tablet devices; and
• Spotify is a subscription music service that offers free, ad-supported
access—as well as subscription access—to a huge catalog of
licensed music.
Google Play provides game developers with a platform to showcase their
creativity and sell their apps directly to gamers. As of March 2018, the number of
Android users who installed a game has more than doubled year-over-year.
53How Google Fights Piracy
Google Play
Play Fights Against Piracy
Our policies prohibit apps that infringe copyright, encourage illegal streaming,
or attempt to deceive users by impersonating other apps. Creators and
rightsholders can also notify us about content on Play that infringes on their
rights. This combination of proactive enforcement and notice-and-takedown
makes a big difference.
In addition to proactively removing content that violates our policies, we provide
a webform that creators and rightsholders can use to notify us of potentially
infringing apps that our proactive processes may have missed. When someone
appropriate action. To prevent the abuse of our takedown tools and processes,
Play recently began requiring authentication for anyone submitting a removal
request through our webform. In 2017, more than 14,000 items were removed
from the Play Store through the notice-and-takedown process.
In 2017, more than 14,000 items were
removed from the Play Store through the
notice-and-takedown process.
54How Google Fights Piracy
Google Play
Adveising
55
Advertising
Google provides several platforms for advertisers to build awareness of their
brands, engage new customers, and generate new sources of revenue. By
working with other industry partners, we have helped set industry standards for
safe online advertising. We also work diligently to block infringing sites from
using our services.
Following the Money
are able to make money, anti-piracy strategies will have limited effect. One of
the most effective ways to combat rogue sites that specialize in online piracy
is to cut off their money supply. As a global leader in online advertising, Google
is committed to rooting out and ejecting rogue sites from our advertising
services. We also work with other advertising leaders to craft best practices
aimed at raising standards across the entire online advertising industry. For
example, Google has worked with regulators and other industry leaders in the
European Union, U.K., France, Italy, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere to create
self-regulatory principles that help ensure ads do not appear on alleged
copyright-infringing websites.
92
One of the most effective ways
to combat rogue sites that
specialize in online piracy is
to cut off their money supply.
92
See above section: “Working with
Government and Industry”
56How Google Fights Piracy
Advertising
Best Practices
through which participating advertising companies take steps to enhance ad
buyer control over the placement and context of advertising in order to build
brand safety.
93
This program helps ensure that advertisers and their agents are
able to control where their ads appear across the web.
Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), and other leading ad networks, to
participate in Best Practices and Guidelines for Ad Networks to Address Piracy
and Counterfeiting.
94
Under these best practices, ad networks will maintain and
post policies prohibiting websites that are principally dedicated to engaging
in online piracy from participating in the ad network’s advertising programs.
incentives for pirate sites by cutting off their revenue supply.
In 2015, Google began participating in ongoing discussions and the development
of best practices arising out of the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG)
Anti-Piracy Working Group. This working group is also focused on bringing
advertisers, rightsholders, and platforms together to develop additional best
practices and tools to prevent the placement of online ads on websites dedicated
to piracy or the sale of counterfeit goods.
95
TAG also provides a mechanism
for participating rightsholders to submit information about infringing URLs in a
have already removed ads from those URLs. However, in the rare instances that
we have not, we can usually take action against a site within 48 hours.
We continue to work with both industry and governments on follow-the-money
strategies. In February 2015, Google worked with a cross-industry group in the
United Kingdom called the Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) to create
self-regulatory best practice principles for online advertisers to help ensure
that ads do not appear on alleged copyright-infringing websites.
96
In June 2018,
Google joined a broad coalition of advertising businesses, rightsholders, and
industry groups in signing a voluntary Memorandum of Understanding with the
European Commission. It endorses a “follow the money” strategy to stem the
93
IAB, “IAB Launches First and Only
Quality Assurance Certification for Ad
Networks And Exchanges,” April 2011,
<https://goo.gl/Vg7TWx>
94
The White House, “Coming Together
to Combat Online Piracy and
Counterfeiting,” July 2013,
<https://goo.gl/86x1QE>
95
Trustworthy Accountability Group,
“TAG Anti-Piracy Working Group,”
<https://goo.gl/oekrIi>
96
For more information on DTSG brand
safety, see: <https://goo.gl/narFxp>
57How Google Fights Piracy
Advertising
AdSense
More than 2.5 million web publishers use AdSense to make money from their
content on the web, making it the chief Google advertising product used by online
publishers. The overwhelming majority of those publishers are not engaged in
any kind of copyright infringement. AdSense has always prohibited publishers
from using AdSense to place ads on pages that contain pirated works, and
Google proactively monitors the AdSense network to root out bad publishers.
Since 2012, Google has terminated over 13,000 AdSense accounts and ejected
more than 100,000 sites from our AdSense program for violations of our policy
on copyrighted material. The vast majority of these ejections were caught by
AdSense’s own proactive screens. Almost all AdSense ad formats include a link
that permits a copyright owner to report sites that are violating Google’s policies.
Copyright owners may also notify Google of violations through a webform.
Each time Google receives a valid copyright removal notice for Search, we also
blacklist that page from displaying any AdSense advertising in the future.
AdSense ads appear on fewer than
one-tenth of 1% of the pages that
copyright owners identify in copyright
removal notices for Search.
Google does not want to be in business with rogue sites specializing in piracy.
Thanks to our ongoing efforts, Google is succeeding in detecting and ejecting
these sites from AdSense. While a rogue site might occasionally slip through
the cracks, the data suggests that these sites are a vanishingly small part of the
AdSense network. For example, AdSense ads appear on fewer than one-tenth
of 1% of the pages that copyright owners identify in copyright removal notices
against the AdSense publisher as well. Through integration with Search’s tools
for processing DMCA takedown notices, Google will stop serving ads on pages
that receive a valid DMCA notice. This includes cutting off ads to entire sites that
and route them to human review. Through these efforts, about 7,000 sites had
AdSense disabled in 2017.
58How Google Fights Piracy
Advertising
Google Marketing Platform and
Google Ad Manager
Through Google Marketing Platform and Ad Manager, Google offers a suite of
online advertising platform solutions for both advertisers and web publishers.
The principal customers for these services are large advertisers, ad agencies,
large publishers, and ad networks. It is virtually unheard of for these sorts
of commercial entities to be operating rogue sites specializing in copyright
infringement. Nevertheless, Google prevents publishers from using these
services to display ads on pages that have been identified as infringing, just
in case.
Google Ads is Google’s premier advertising product, delivering the
advertisements that appear next to Google Search results as well as the
text advertisements on our network of partner sites across the Web. Google
has zero tolerance for copyright-infringing ads in Search, and has dedicated
considerable human and engineering resources across the company to develop
and implement measures to root out infringing ads. In 2017, Google disapproved
more than 10 million ads that we suspected of copyright infringement or that link
to infringing sites. People can also notify Google of ads that they believe infringe
their copyright through a webform.
97
We have also implemented changes to
ensure that if an ad receives a valid DMCA takedown notice, the ad gets blocked
permanently from Google Ads
97
For more information, see:
<https://goo.gl/477ex3>
In 2017, Google disapproved
more than 10 million ads that we
suspected of copyright infringement
or that link to infringing sites.
Ads
59How Google Fights Piracy
Advertising
Fighting new forms of piracy
60
Fighting New Forms
of Piracy
Kodi Add-Ons
Combating illegal streaming on open-source media players like the Kodi box
against piracy. Open-source set top boxes themselves are legal and the XBMC
Foundation, which developed the Kodi media player application, has taken steps
to deter its use for streaming piracy. Nonetheless, pirates have created add-ons
to enable Kodi boxes to access infringing works. Google has taken a number of
steps to prevent this form of piracy:
Shopping: We removed set-top boxes with suspicious add-ons from
Google Shopping.
Play: We proactively sweep the Play Store for apps with pre-installed Kodi
add-ons that give access to infringing sites and remove them before they are
made available.
Streaming Abuse
In recent years, Google has focused on identifying infringing streaming from
team dedicated to tackling these illegal streams. We met with external
but also streaming providers both in the U.S. and the E.U., who felt their services
were suffering from competition with the pirates. We relied heavily on data these
external partners provided us, which helped us detect patterns of problematic
activity on Drive, and make a number of changes to Drive architecture and
policies. We were able to identify and take action against problematic accounts
and also set up monitoring to look for suspicious changes in streaming activity
After we strengthened our enforcement on Drive, we saw pirates attempt to
exploit other hosted products, even Google Maps.
98
We were able to apply the
suspicious activity.
98
TorrentFreak, “Spammers Populate
Google Maps with Pirate Links,” April
2017, <https://goo.gl/mmMLu8>
61How Google Fights Piracy
Fighting new forms of piracy
Piracy on Other Google Products
Google receives a smaller volume of copyright takedown notices requesting
removal of content from other products through a publicly-accessible webform.
In 2017, we performed the following removals:
• Drive: nearly 4,000,000 URLs removed
• Google Photos: over 200,000 URLs removed
• Sites: nearly 200,000 URLs removed
• Blogger: over 150,000 URLs removed
• MyMaps and Google Maps: nearly 4,000 URLs removed
• Shopping: over 1,000 URLs removed
62How Google Fights Piracy
Fighting new forms of piracy
Conclusion
63
Conclusion
Today, Google’s services are generating more revenue for creators and
rightsholders, connecting more people with the content they love, and doing
Play have helped millions of creators worldwide to reach global audiences and
generate revenue. Along with new Google Search features, these platforms have
books, and other creative works. By building industry-leading tools like Content ID
and our Search demotion signal, working with policymakers and setting industry
standards to cut off revenues to bad actors, we are tipping the scales against
online piracy. Through continued innovation and partnership, we’re committed to
rolling back bad actors while empowering the creative communities who make
everything we love about the internet today.
Links to More Information
For more information, you can visit the links below:
Google Transparency Report
https://google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/
YouTube Copyright Center
https://youtube.com/yt/copyright/
Google Legal Request Webform
https://support.google.com/legal
64How Google Fights Piracy
