Google Surpasses 10 Billion Takedown Requests for Reported Pirate Websites Search Results
Published on November 6, 2024
- The number of takedown requests addressed to Google regarding copyright-infringing websites reached 10 billion.
- The tech giant is hit with approximately 2.5 billion such requests per year from copyright holders trying to combat piracy.
- File-hosting services and streaming portals are primary targets due to their extensive indexed pages.
Google has been asked to remove over 10 billion URLs deemed to infringe on copyright laws. In response, copyright holders began leveraging DMCA takedown requests to combat piracy, flagging infringing links for removal from Google's search index.Â
Since the early 2000s, as piracy transitioned online with the rise of BitTorrent, search engines inadvertently became conduits for accessing pirated content. Initially processing only a few million requests annually, Google witnessed an explosive increase in takedown notices, reaching one billion requests by 2016.
Despite a temporary decline in takedown volumes due to anti-piracy algorithms, Google is now processing takedown requests at an unprecedented rate of approximately 2.5 billion per year. This equates to about 50 million requests weekly or 5,000 every minute. The surge is driven by evolving piracy tactics and the proliferation of file-hosting and streaming services.
The landscape of targeted sites and the rightsholders behind DMCA requests have evolved. Torrent sites like The Pirate Bay were initially predominant, but more recently, file-hosting services and streaming portals have become primary targets due to their extensive indexed pages.Â
Additionally, publishers, who once accounted for a small fraction of requests, now represent over half of the URLs reported this year, reflecting their intensified anti-piracy efforts.
The milestone of 10 billion URLs is largely driven by a select group of rightsholders and reporting entities. Notably, takedown outfit Link-Busters accounts for nearly 1.5 billion reported links, while the top ten rightsholders, including entities like BPI and HarperCollins, are responsible for 40% of all reported links.Â
Despite the dominance of these players, over 600,000 rightsholders have filed takedown requests.
While 10 billion is a monumental figure, the actual number of URLs removed from Google's search is unclear, as Google's transparency data does not distinguish between removed links, duplicates, or non-indexed URLs at the time of the takedown notice.Â
Furthermore, some domains receive erroneous reports, such as WhiteHouse.gov, which was flagged 27 times without any infringing material present.
In the summer, Google asked a U.S. court to dismiss lawsuit claims accusing the tech giant of profiting from Google ads that promote pirate websites.
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