In SEO news, Google has been accused of dragging their feet in regard to removing links that lead to copyright infringed material. RIAA has been lobbying hard for a number of government mandated measures that take aim at sites that host any music they deem is infringing on a copyright. Music piracy has long been a problem, and anyone that has been through the SERPs has seen that a number of sketchy results ranked high for years. That has changed, in fact it has changed drastically, but RIAA still isn’t satisfied.
RIAA wants Google to track down all cases of piracy or suspected piracy and remove them. Google feels it is the responsibility of RIAA to submit a takedown notice, and has acted quickly when RIAA, or any copyright holder, has. Upon further investigation, for all the complaining RIAA does, they actually send very few takedown requests compared to other media agencies and have a large portion honored.
For SEOs this is particularly good news as it demonstrates that Google is doing their job. SEOs have to be protective of the content they create, and copyright infringement is a problem that many face to varying degrees. Knowing that Google is processing a tremendous amount of requests very quickly, and in favor of the copyright holder, makes SEO better for the end user as well as they will not be inadvertently penalized for content appearing in multiple places as soon as Google is notified.
Tags: copyright infringement, Google, RIAA, SERPs
