Google reports copyright takedown requests spiked in 2012

Google
Publicly posting takedown notices sparked corporate interest in search copyright protection

A post on Google's Policy by the Numbers blog this week indicated that the amount of copyright takedown requests grew ten times between May and November.

Fred Von Lohmann, Legal Director at Google, wrote that in May 2012, when the Mountain View-based search giant start posting copyright infringement link removal notices, it processed around 250,000 requests a week.

As of November 2012, Google sees 2.5 million requests each week, and removes 97.5% of all the links requested for removal.

The company's legal department says that its average response time to copyright queries, even with the major uptick in requests, is around six hours.

A brief look at the Transparency Report, the feature that Google launched in May, opens up a detailed, publicly available view of all the biggest copyright holders.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) members sit firmly at the top of the list, representing almost 2.5 million recognized copyrights.

RIAA members include Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, among others. Fox and Microsoft also find top spots on the list.

On the other side of the copyright battlefield are the top offenders of posting copyrighted material. Filestube.com, sumotorrent.com, and torrentz.eu.

To date, almost 12.3 million URLs have been removed from search circulation by Google for copyright violation.

Via The Verge