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Google is implementing a new policy that will smack down search results from sites that get a lot of DMCA requests. That must affect Google’s own YouTube, which must get slammed with them all the time, right? Not exactly.
Search Engine Land provides an in-depth explanation of exactly what is going on, but it comes down to one major detail: YouTube video takedowns aren’t necessarily DMCA takedowns. In fact, that usually aren’t. You see, YouTube has this “nice” feature called Content ID which allows rightsholders to automatically police YouTube content, complain about possible infringement, and have videos taken down. None of this, however, involves the DMCA. This is just handy YouTube functionality.
Google’s new policy will start knocking down site rankings after [X number] (kept secret, for the time being) of requests against pages on the site. So if you’re a torrent site, people might DMCA the pages where your links are. If you’re using your own player to host copyrighted video, people might DMCA the page where you posted it. But if you’re YouTube, it’s much easier to just use the built-in YouTube system. Elsewhere, DMCA is best option other than the dreaded “strongly-worded email.”
Sure, sure, OK. But what does all that mean? It means that while sites that get a bad name for hosting copyrighted content and get DMCA’d a lot will get a slap in the Google rankings, YouTube won’t because technically it’s not getting many DMCA requests.
There are two ways to look at this. First, you can say that Google is being biased (maybe even evil) by giving its own site what seems like a very technical and dubious pass. On the other hand, you can say that Google is just rewarding YouTube for having such a proactive, easy to use, built-in takedown system, even though that system gets things wrong a lot. In either case, the whole thing smells just slightly funny because YouTube is a Google property, though frankly, it’d probably take a lot more than this policy to unseat the reigning video king. [Search Engine Land]
what will happen to vimeo, videojug etc. ? Unless they also have a similar takedown system will they be affected?
Sounds simple really. If you implement a policy of being proactive and working with content owners about making sure you are not infringing their copyright, Google will not punish you in their rankings. If you happily accept that you host copyrighted data without consent and are unwilling to take it down unless forced then you get marked down.
I think this will have a good side to it, websites that leech like Funnyjunk will have to clean up their act and stop screwing others.
Doesn’t this mean that governments/organisations could deliberately spam sites with DMCA notices for purely political reasons? They don’t have to be legitimate complaints, just unchallenged complaints.
Besides, I thought google was categorically against manipulating its search results. What happened?