Now that I think about it more, perhaps a better metric would be takedowns versus unique objects. For example, a site with 100 DMCA takedowns and 500 vids (high percentage of piracy); versus a site with 100 DMCA takedowns and 500,000 vids (mostly genuine vids, or at least not yet complained about)

Google may not be able to reliably determine "number of potentially copyrightable objects" on a site, but they could use something simpler like a count of pages.

100 DMCAs with 500 pages = severe penalty
100 DMCAs with 500,000 pages = slight or zero penalty

edit: Looks like google are already evaluating this. Right hand column: "URLs requested to be removed as a percentage of the specified domain's indexed URLs."

http://www.google.com/transparencyre...ns/?r=all-time

If you get a 100 DMCAs to a porn site, you're a pirate and need to lose your ranking.

The point I was trying to make is that a very popular site with (genuine) user uploads is going to get a lot of DMCAs, possibly at the same sort of level as a less popular one with "fake" user uploaded content. The former is a popular site with a small percentage of copyrighted content, the latter a blatant pirate. That's why the percentage of DMCAs vs indexed pages works as a better penalty metric.

Wrong.

Every torrent site, filehost aggregator or any other pirate sites knows how to game that stat and they're already doing it. They index every query ever ran on their site as an individual page that Google indexes. You can search for "Megan Fox and Morgan Freeman sex tape" on Filestube and within hours that's the number one google result. That percentages of pages stat is bullshit. Pirates would LOVE for Google to use that (and Google probably will) because it's so easily manipulated. Do you actually believe less than 5% of the material on ThePirateBay is pirated? Do you actually believe less than 1% of the stuff on Filestube is pirated? Pirates would love you to believe that's true but it's complete horseshit.

Thanks for outing yourself. :1orglaugh :2 cents:

yup auto correct on the browser spelling checker did that, right clicked and selected the wrong word

Pirates will rot in hell under the command of Satan sent by Jesus Christ

Only one of those three actually exists. :Oh crap

Yes that is entirely possible but those specific warez search engines cannot claim "we're like google" anymore. Because to be like Google, they'll need to start punishing piracy sites too which will make them useless for surfers because they do not index anything else except for piracy sites.

That means Google is setting of what actually is a legal precendent. Now the next time a site like Isohunt or Torrentz.eu is dragged to court, they cannot scream "we're just a neutral search engine like google" anymore like they did since times immorial. No policy against repeat offenders, you're not like Google. Period.

The importance of what Google just did is not simply that piracy sites will start getting less of Google traffic, although that is very important too. But their latest move also provides a weapon to sue piracy search engines like Isohunt/Torrentz.eu/Filestube/Filetram into oblivion.

How does a private company changing its policy set a legal precedent?

It is not exactly a legal precedent of course. But it is quite common nowadays for courts to take into account community standards and practices of big respectable companies such as Google. When Isohunt and the likes start screaming next time "we're like google" any good lawyer will simply ask them "where is your repeat infringer policy similar to the one that Google implemented". There are good chances that courts will side with that arguement.

except the fact that Google exempts there own tube site means that all isohunt will have to do is add a Google search query under their own results

and say see where just like Google , we exempt our own stuff too , and then just USE Google , including their repeat infringer policy afterwards.


it not the "legal precedent" you want unless it universally applied.

I wonder how much Google regrets releasing their transparency report. :)

I think that they loved the pirates until they had to create a division within Google to respond to DMCA requests. I see how many we send them ... it's pretty crazy.