Search engines team up with film, TV and music industries to combat piracy
Google and Bing are teaming up with the UK’s £87bn creative industries to combat piracy.
The search engines will adhere to a voluntary code of practice, so that websites infringing on copyrighted content appear lower in search results. Improvements will also be made to autocomplete suggestions so that they are less likely to lead users to illegal material.
The initiative aims to reduce the number of people accessing illegal sites, which currently stands at 6.7m UK users. In the three-month period from March to May 2016, films were accessed through illegal sources 24m times and music tracks 78m times.
The measure comes out of a series of government-chaired roundtables, led by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Members of the UK’s creative industries, which generate around £10m an hour for the UK economy, will be closely involved in the process.
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and BRIT Awards, said: “Successful and dynamic online innovation requires an ecosystem that works for everyone – users, technology companies, and artists and creators.
“The Code will not be a silver bullet fix, but it will mean that illegal sites are demoted more quickly from search results and that fans searching for music are more likely to find a fair site.”
The code will also try to prevent consumers from being exposed to viruses and hacking, after research from the Digital Citizens Alliance and RiskIQ showed that as many as 1 in 3 illegal sites carry harmful malware. The agreement will run in parallel with existing anti-piracy measures such as court ordered site blocking.
Stan McCoy, president and managing director of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) EMEA, said: “We look forward to working on this initiative alongside many other approaches to fighting online piracy, such as the ‘Get it Right’ campaign that aims to help educate consumers about the many ways to enjoy film and television content legally and at the time of their choosing.”