Google Inc. is altering its search results to de-emphasizethe websites of repeat copyright offenders and make it easier to findlegitimate providers of music, movies and other content.
The move is a peace offering to Hollywood and the music recording labels. Thisyear, Google joined other Silicon Valley heavyweights to help kill legislationthat would have given government and content creators more power to shut downforeign websites that promote piracy.
The Motion Picture Association of America issued a lukewarm response, saying itwas "optimistic" the change would help steer consumers away frompiracy.
"We will be watching this development closely — the devil is always in thedetails," MPAA senior executive president Michael O'Leary said in astatement.
Next week, Google will start using "valid copyright removal notices"to rank its search results, according to a Friday blog post by Google's seniorvice president of engineering, Amit Singhal.
Google typically ranks websites based on how many other sites link to them, onthe belief that sites that get more links are more trustworthy and useful. ButGoogle also regularly tweaks its formulas to reflect special circumstances.
In this case, sites with high numbers of copyright-removal notices may getbumped down in rankings. In effect, that will help users find legitimatesources of content without removing any pages from its results completely.Google did not elaborate on what it considers to be valid notices.
Google's icy relationship with content creators has thawed slightly.
Last month, Google said it would offer a $50-per-month TV package over asuper-fast fiber network in a Kansas City test bed. The package would offermainstream channels including Viacom Inc.'s Nickelodeon.
Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, also sells movies andmusic through its Google Play store on mobile devices that use its Androidoperating system.
But a $1 billion copyright lawsuit filed by Viacom against Google's YouTube in2007 was re-instated by a federal appeals court in April after a lower courtthrew it out.
And last week, court papers showed that the Authors Guild is demanding Googlepay $750 for each of the 20 million books it has scanned in a 7-year-old case.