Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) recently announced new tweaks to help fight piracy. The search giant introduced ‘How Google Fights Piracy’, a special report.
Google’s new changes
Katherine Oyama(Google’s Senior Copyright Policy Counsel at Google) shared the changes in a blog post. New ad formats were discussed in the post and these ad formats were made to direct people to the things they search for like downloads, free, or watch next to movies or music.
The post provided an example with a screenshot that displayed the search for “watch star trek into darkness” and it returned with ads to major entertainment providers such as Netflix, Amazon, and Google Play. There will be a second tweak on the right panel that shows up with the search of any pop star or movie. The search giant will add advert links to reliable entertainment websites. Unfortunately these tweaks are exclusive to the United States for now. It is speculated the United Kingdom will see these changes next.
Google to bump down piracy sites
Last, but certainly not least, Google will add an improved DMCA demotion signal for search results. This means websites that already received a lot of DMCA notices will continue to be bumped down faster.
Piracy and illegal downloads are a real problem for the entertainment industry. The company’s recent changes should benefit everyone but it will come with a price. If a legitimate movie download or streaming company wants more traffic, it will have to pay Google for ad placement.
A representative for music trade group BPI explained to BBC, “There should be no cost when it comes to serving consumers with results for legal services. Instead we have urged the search giant to use the machine-readable data on the Music Matters website, which lists all services licensed in the UK, and to promote these legal services above illegal sites and results in their search, using appropriate weighting applied fairly and equally across services.”
These changes will improve the search experience for everyone.
