Google Talks Up Anti-Piracy Efforts, Champions DMCA

Google said Wednesday that it is well underway with plans to update its copyright plan, and urged Congress not to craft laws that would undermine the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

“The DMCA strikes the right balance, and we should build upon it, not undermine it,” Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, told the House Judiciary subcommittee on IP, competition, and the Internet.

 

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Walker was one of several executives testifying at a hearing that focused on protecting online commerce against “parasite” sites that traffic in pirated goods. This can range from fake Louis Vuitton purses to fake medicines.

Last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which would have allowed the Department of Justice to obtain an injunction and seize the domain name of a site found to offer pirated goods – like music streams or movie downloads. It would go one step further, however, and require U.S. ISPs to cut off contact with these domains.

The bill went no further in the last Congress, but momentum is reportedly building in both chambers for the measure, or something similar, to be introduced this year.

Google’s Walker, however, warned lawmakers not to go overboard.

“An overbroad definition of a rogue site could easily ensnare millions of popular U.S. Web sites that allow users to sell goods or upload content,” he said. “Web sites that responsibly respond to takedown notices and comply with the DMCA should not be deemed rogue.”

In December, Google unveiled an updated copyright plan in which it pledged to: act on copyright takedown requests within 24 hours; build tools to improve the submission process to make it easier for people to file these DMCA takedown requests, starting with Blogger and Web search; delete terms closely associated with piracy from appearing via autocomplete; and improve its AdSense anti-piracy review.

The effort to comply with takedown requests within 24 hours “is well underway, and we have already invested significant engineering resources,” Walker said Wednesday.

“The new tool for Web Search is already being tested with a content industry partner, and the Blogger tool will begin testing next month,” he continued. “We are also in the process of improving our transparency efforts to notify site owners and our users when content has been removed as a result of allegations of infringement.”

Walker said that in the last six months of 2010, Google shut down 50,000 accounts for attempting to use sponsored links to sell counterfeit goods, and about 95 percent of those accounts were discovered via Google’s own detection efforts. Still, he said, “it’s a whack-a-mole problem” and “we’re never going to get rid of all the bad guys.”

Subcommittee chairman Bob Goodlatte expressed concern that his staff was able to easily search for and locate free Taylor Swift MP3s via Google Search, and that Google’s autocomplete function suggested “watch free bootleg movies online” when searching for “watch movies online.”

Walker said Google removes infringing content when it is notified or discovers it on its own, but said “the Internet’s a big place.”

“We think the best way to fight that battle is collaboratively,” he said. Google can rapidly remove content and build tools to fight piracy, but the content industry can help by letting Google know what’s authorized and what’s not, Walker said.

When it comes to autocomplete, Walker said those suggestions are based on what people are searching for on Google. It’s a “reflection of how many users are actually trying to seek illegal, bootleg, pirate content,” he said.

Google is committed to removing this type of content, he said, but the company has to make sure it strikes the right balance and doesn’t remove necessary terms. Even phrases like faux, replica, or knock-off have legitimate uses, Walker said.