Attention illegal music downloaders: do you use Google to help you find pirate music sites? You do? Well, you better find another way to get your free music because Google has announced four new policies that they will be implementing in the next several months that they hope will help curb access to pirated music content. However, as we all know, they probably won’t work because it takes a lot more than what they have planned to seriously deter music piracy.
The new policies, posted on Thursday, are as follows:
01: Google will act on reliable copyright takedown requests within 24 hours.
02: Google will prevent terms that are closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete.
03: Google will improve our AdSense anti-piracy review.
04: Google will experiment to make authorized preview content more readily accessible in search results.
What does all this mean? It means that little 12-year-olds who don’t have money and go on the internet looking for free music will have a harder time finding it when they use Google to search for “free pirated music” but all of the people who already use pirate websites will continue typing web addresses right into their web browser’s URL slot. Way to go Google, keep that finger in the dike.
The RIAA seems pleased though: “These are encouraging and positive first steps towards a more sensible online experience for both users and the music community. Google deserves credit for proposing a constructive set of reforms and undertaking useful steps to better protect the rights of creators and encourage legal ways to enjoy music. While there is much more work to be done, this announcement is an important acknowledgment that everyone involved in the online ecosystem has a shared responsibility to constructively address the online piracy problem that is devastating the creative industries.”
In other words: “Make sure we stop losing money because we need our money and we need it now.”
