Last week, Google announced an update to its search algorithms. From now on, Google starts to take the number of valid copyright removal notices into account in its search results rankings. Websites with a high number of removal notices may appear lower in the search results. According to Google, this should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily. Google states it receives and processes more copyright removal notices every day than it did in all of 2009. 

Even if the amount of copyright removal notices influences the ranking of the search results, Google will not determine whether a particular website infringes copyright law. "Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed." it says on its Google Search blog. Google will not remove search results unless it receives a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner.

Notwithstanding the fact that Google's update to its search algorithms is aimed at decreasing piracy, it caused some controversy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American digital rights organization, states on its blog that Google's new rankings system is pretty unclear and is afraid that it will give copyright owners control over what we see, hear and read. Search Engine Land comments on the fact that certain popular websites, amongst others YouTube, won't be hit by the new system: "Without clarification from Google, we can only make assumptions on how this will work."

Practice shall reveal whether Google's new rankings system is a significant contribution to the fight against piracy and a boost for legal content services. Of course, we hope so. 

Read more about Google on FutureOfCopyright.com:

• Google argues fair use in Google Books case
• French Court: Google can be ordered to filter piracy-related search terms
• Oracle loses copyright claims against Google on Java programming language

Source: Inside Search (The official Google Search blog)

By: Marjolein van der Heide