DMCA Notices Will Be a Factor in Search

[netmeg]

Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily—whether it’s a song previewed on NPR’s music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify. [insidesearch.blogspot.com...]

[rustybrick]

Watch YouTube drop off the Google rankings. NOT. :)

[Lame_Wolf]

What about the big players like Photobucket and Pinterest ? I am forever raising DMCA's with them.

[jecasc]

Watch YouTube drop off the Google rankings. NOT.

All animals are created equal - but some animals....

[gethan]

Really interesting - why did it take so long to become a factor?

More coverage:

[arstechnica.com...]

Added:

It is a little worrying that the only DMCAs against sites I run have been against URLs that don't and have never existed... how much weighting will this be given? will this become another way to cause havoc on a legitimate website?

[tedster]

It is a little worrying that the only DMCAs against sites I run have been against URLs that don't and have never existed... how much weighting will this be given?

Right now, I would let go of that worry. In this blog article Google did say they will be using VALID complaints. I'm sure there will be some people who poke at the edges of this to see what they can accomplish, but I doubt that their efforts will look "valid".

[smithaa02]

Wonder if this will end up being on a per page basis instead of a site-wide basis. Any site that serves dynamic content (youtube/wikipedia/even google/etc...is vulnerable and has the potential to be punished for just the actions of just some bad apples. Hope this nails scrapers.

[Ralph_Slate]

Wow, this has the potential to waste a lot of people's time, doesn't it? Is there any cost associated with filing a DMCA notice? If not, then people will file as many as they can in the hopes that some will stick. And if you get repeated notices filed against you, you will have to defend yourself or be de-indexed. Wow.

Google is in pretty deep here, and it is going to be hard for them to go back.

[aristotle]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that the algorithm ought to already be able to identify websites that have a lot of scraped content. In other words, Google shouldn't even need to use DMCAs

[Str82u]

That sucks when you deal with content that Google won't get involved with. I have about 22 denials for a site just because it's a subject they won't touch, that's not an opinion, they opened a dialog with me concerning these and eventually said if you successfully DMCA the site through the host or legal channels let us know and we'll remove them from the index.

[Lame_Wolf]

Wow, this has the potential to waste a lot of people's time, doesn't it?

I already spend 30 odd hours a week searching and reporting.

Is there any cost associated with filing a DMCA notice?

Only your time.

If not, then people will file as many as they can in the hopes that some will stick.

You really think so?
Do you know how serious it is to raise a failse counterclaim? I hope you have deep pockets.

And if you get repeated notices filed against you, you will have to defend yourself or be de-indexed.

The hosting company will more than likely close you down before that happens. And it won't matter if you are then de-index or not because the person who found you will be keeping an eye on your site for a long, long time.

[netmeg]

I kind of suspect they're not going after scrapers as much as pirates.

[Str82u]

I kind of suspect they're not going after scrapers as much as pirates.

Which doesn't seem like a big delineation but that is a point taken, one is seriously targeted, the other is just massive.

The hosting company will more than likely close you down before that happens.

We make sure our hosting companies keep records of our backups... sick, yes, but it is on record to prevent them from taking action on us for a "standard" DMCA should a competitor try to backdoor us. That and our hosts have upheld our DMCAs on their servers and know who we are rather than Google who does not seem to.

EDIT: I should say that the recognition on Google's part would have to be at the ultra-granular level.

[timwilliams]

There was an article on August 8th discussing the trouble google was having working deals with networks to offer on google fiber. News Corp's COO was quoted as saying "We want to make sure [we do business] with people who respect issues that are important to us around piracy and everything else."
I guess this is google's way of showing just how much they care about piracy...

[indyank]

There is a trend where content hosted on blogspot (Google's servers) were ranking higher after Panda and Penguin. Blogspot is definitely one of the most copyright abusing platforms, yet they seem to have been given some slots, like Google news has a slot on the the front page of Google search!

Another disturbing thing I noticed with the rollout of the knowledge graph worldwide yesterday is several images of celebrities used for the knowledge graph, link back to google hosted blogger blogs.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Google technically owns no content so does this mean that things like youtube videos and Google shopping will finally be banished from page one results? I sure hope so, but I won't hold my breath.

In other reports that you can find on Google news mashup...

Google is to make a significant change to its search algorithm from Monday, downgrading websites that persistently breach copyright laws.

The move is a victory for media and entertainment giants, which have complained for years that Google does not do enough to prevent access to material that breaches strict copyright laws on content such as music videos and TV shows.

[iamlost]

Google's rational is in the following:

In fact, we're now receiving and processing more copyright removal notices every day than we did in all of 2009 - more than 4.3 million URLs in the last 30 days alone. We will now be using this data as a signal in our search rankings.

It is not the fact of scrapers, infringement, entertainment industry complaints et al but the amount of resources that Google now have to allocate to deal with the increase in DMCAs.

I expect the threshold will be such that only the worst (after excluding Google or Google Partner sites) will be hammered, say the n% that make up 80% of the complaints bringing the management costs back in line. Add in a nice PR effect for taking on the big bad scrapers.

Unfortunately, I don't expect it to have much if any effect in most niches. Certainly not holding my breathe in expectation of sending fewer DMCAs to Google in future.

[edited by: tedster at 10:22 am (utc) on Aug 18, 2012]
[edit reason] fix charset issues [/edit]

[Andem]

There's a company make big bucks for "DMCA removal services" and what they do is search with Google itself to find even a mention of a trademark. They then send Google DMCA noticed and next thing you know, all mentions of a certain brand name seem to have disappeared.

We've had to send counter-notices because of this one company 7 times now and these were all positive reviews of a brand name!

Watch YouTube drop off the Google rankings. NOT. :)

Google should practice what they preach. YouTube probably has one of the highest rates of valid DMCA notices on the entire web. If the algo was really not biased, we *SHOULD* see YouTube drop off of all search results.

What about Blogspot? I'm sure they're also high up there next to YouTube.

[fathom]

Wow, this has the potential to waste a lot of people's time, doesn't it? Is there any cost associated with filing a DMCA notice? If not, then people will file as many as they can in the hopes that some will stick. And if you get repeated notices filed against you, you will have to defend yourself or be de-indexed. Wow.

Google is in pretty deep here, and it is going to be hard for them to go back.

Course a false claim in the courts in worth more than $100,000+ plus legal expenses in the past so you REALLY hope a few will stick so you can stick it to them alot more than your page is actually worth.

[Angonasec]

Somewhat ironic that this apparently good news appears on Blogspot.

This year alone I have DMCA'd Blogger/Blogspot with hundreds of infringements on their servers, each of which was successful, yet the same Blogspot User simply continues to start another blog on Blogspot and re-posts the same stolen material.

I have asked Google/Blogspot why they allow the multiple TOS breaker and copyright infringer to use their network, but they ignore my question, and simply pull each infringement I report.

They allow the infringing site to remain active, continuing to steal other people's copyright material.

They don't even close down the User Name, despite multiple repeated infringements on dozens of sites, and hundreds of urls.

Whatever remained of Blogger/Blogspot/Google's integrity is in tatters.

It is plain to anyone who deals often with Google's legal department that there are huge tensions within G itself.

Notably Adsense legal fighting with Search legal over their integrity at honouring legitimate DMCAs.

Guess which Dept. has the least integrity?

As indicated in this thread, the algo penalty move appears to be a mere window-dressing statement.

[wolfadeus]

Taking user-driven website evaluations into account has been announced in one way or another by google many times before. So far, few has changed, at least for me and others who played a fair game.

[Panthro]

Weird this does not show up at the top of their blog. It's down a couple posts although it is the most recent.

[ChrisWilson]

The potential for abuse here is going to be unreal.

[ZydoSEO]

I agree. It's definitely in no way similar to the US justice system where you're assumed innocent until proven guilty. Copyright infringement is illegal. As such it should be decided by a court of law.

A "valid" DMCA takedown request doesn't necessarily mean that the person submitting it has been determined to BE the real copyright holder or to BE infringed upon. It simply means you submitted all of the information required on the form. And by Google's own admission, they take down approximately 97% of all contested content submitted via DMCAs.

This is essentially saying that, "If you have a DMCA takedown request submitted against your site then you are assumed to be GUILTY of infringement." Most hosting providers will automatically take it down JUST to avoid getting caught in the middle of any legal dispute.

I don't have a problem with DMCAs. I've used them myself against people who have scraped my content. But using them as a ranking factor when the tendency of hosting providers is to takedown the content as the result of almost any DMCA request first... and hope the accused doesn't ask questions later... is very dangerous and VERY open to manipulation. Hello Roboform and other tools... You can definitely automate submission of "valid" DMCA requests.

And now with Penguin, people are actually submitting DMCAs as a way to get links taken down. They are claiming that other sites merely mentioning their company domain name and/or linking to their site is a copyright infringement.

And then there are those sites that used article submission to generate back links and are now being filtered by Penguin. Many are filing DMCA requests against every site that republished their articles even though those sites had the right to republish them (the author accepted that as part of the submission site's TOS/T&Cs.) These re-publishing sites are not violating any copyright law because the author specifically gave them permission to do so.

IMO it's a very bad idea to use this as a ranking signal when the standard response to a DMCA request in the industry is to take down content first, and then expects the accused to prove their innocence later.

But then this is all about the billions of dollars Google stands to make from the entertainment industry and other special interest groups that they bowed down to resulting in this change... It's not really about improving the SERPs.

[chicagohh]

Having been involved in several DMCA wars my first thoughts are, "Game on".

It appears to be legally safer to file a DMCA Complaint than a Counter Notice. A DMCA complaint is done in "good faith" - a measurement that has a lot of wiggle room. Filing a Counter Notice is done, "under penalty of perjury".

Last year I had a dental marketing company file three DMCA complaints in a row against one of my sites (original hand written content by me). It was a major pain in the a$$. I only found out because they also sent one to my host who was kind enough to contact me before removing the targeted pages. So, three DMCA complaints and three Counter Notices. I have written about this situation several times going back a few years. There is only one way to stop a situation like that...

[Lorel]

I have a client whose competitor has continually stolen his content and put it on new websites that were eventually taken down by Google or the host with DMCAs. I hope google keeps a record of the owner of those sites and demotes all his sites as the competitor never posts stolen content on his main site.

[outland88]

My understanding of this (based upon other articles) is Google was only going to be protecting copyrights of a select cadre of movie, record, etc. companies but the fate of the general rank and file webmaster was going to stay about the same. In other words it sounded like Google was going to be pretty selective in who it slammed and who it wouldn’t.

[AG4Life]

As a victim of wrongly filed DMCA notices in the past (innocent mistake that time), Google's definition of a "valid" DMCA notice is simply one that follows the right formatting, and isn't too outrageous in its demands (that is, it isn't asking Amazon.com to be delisted).

To turn this "valid", but possibly still falsely filed DMCA request into an invalid one, be prepared to file a lot of counter notifications. All one needs is a Google account to file a DMCA notice, it's hardly a fool proof process that, even according to Google, isn't subject to a whole lot of abuse (something like nearly 58% of all DMCA notices are competitors trying to seek an unfair advantage, according to Google's own statements).

[tedster]

something like nearly 58% of all DMCA notices are competitors trying to seek an unfair advantage, according to Google's own statements

Wow - if you can find a link for that statement, I'd like to see it. Talk about negative SEO!

[outland88]

The biggest problem in all actuality is not Google removing innocent content but Google ever removing it to begin with. Time after time I've seen once purged content resurface again and again with updates. That's why I read with interest about people shifting domains to deal with any Google problem. With Google's all consuming data gathering I wonder if many domains aren't rendered useless over time because of all the content theft.