Google explains how it combats piracy on its services

The anti-piracy road hasn’t played out easy for Google, to the point where past claims have stated that the company’s efforts simply aren’t working. But Google says it’s doing everything it can to combat piracy across its services, of which Search is likely the most important one — at least to copyright holders. With this in mind, the technology giant has released an updated version of its document “How Google Fights Piracy,” in which it dives into detail about what steps it’s taking to crack down on pirated content.

Google, which has been blasted by Hollywood and other content owners for not doing enough to purge links to pirated material from its dominant Internet search engine, says it’s taken new steps to make search results more copyright-friendly. In a white paper released Friday updating its anti-piracy efforts, Google said that earlier this month it improved its search-engine algorithms to more effectively demote sites in its rankings that have received a large number of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices — something the MPAA and others have been urging Google to do for more than two years. In addition, Google said it recently enhanced “autocomplete” and “related search” functions to prevent terms “closely associated with piracy” from appearing in those results, and that it has introduced new advertising products to further promote authorized sources of content in search results.