Andre Yoskowitz
22 Sep 2014 12:55
According to a new report, the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) industry trade group has sent nearly 275,000 DMCA takedown notices, encompassing 100 million URLs.
Despite the huge figure and Google's speed at taking down infringing links, the trade group believes ISPs and the search giant can do more to stop widespread piracy.
BPI sent their first takedown notice in June 2011, and the URL count was at 50 million just 10 months ago showing how much more efficient the group is getting at sending them out, whether they are accurate or not. BPI just beat out "multimedia protection company" Degban, who has 99 million URLs reported, and everyone's favorite music trade group RIAA, at 57 million.
A BPI spokesperson discussed the "milestone," and begged Google to do more to stop piracy:
This milestone makes two things very clear. First, that however much creators do, the system of 'notice and takedown' will never be enough on its own to protect them or consumers from the online black market, or to spur growth in the digital economy. Second, that despite its clear knowledge as to which sites are engines of piracy, Google continues to help build their illegal businesses, by giving them a prominent ranking in search results. To illustrate: Google's records show it has been told more than 10 million times that content on 4shared.com is illegal – yet it's still the very first result today when we search for 'Calvin Harris mp3′ – ahead of Amazon and every other legal service. Google can simply fix this problem by amending its algorithm. We hope they will respond positively to the invitation from Government to negotiate voluntary measures to do so. It's time the media giant changed its tune – we need a little less conversation and a little more action please.