Google on Friday revealed a new system for fighting piracy on the web. Amit Singhal, Google's SVP of Engineering, said that starting this week, the company would implement an update in the search algorithms that will place sites related to piracy lower on the list. The demotion will be based on the number of valid copyright removal notices (DMCA) Google receives for any given website, and aims to help Web surfers find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily, pushing Spotify, Hulu and others to the top. However, it seems Google's own video site, YouTube, has no risk of falling in the rankings.
Search Engine Land reports that since Google's system for filing copyright removal notices is different, Youtube (which no doubt receives numerous take-down notices each day) won't be affected by the new policy. The issue lies with the fact that YouTube has its own Copyright Center complete with a Copyright Infringement Notification button for copyright owners. There's also a Content Verification Program and Content ID button for submitting multiple copyright notifications and verifying content. Filing a copyright infringement claim in this way lets Google know about the infringement without actually sending a DMCA notice.
SEL's Danny Sullivan writes that if copyright owners do decide to go the takedown route and get a video removed, the YouTube page hosting the video itself remains up and also remains potentially listed in Google. If the search giant had a common DMCA takedown system, YouTube would be affected by the new demoting system. However, because it has its own tools for having videos removed, it won't ever find itself on Google's list of publishers with the most takedown notices.
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