Despite reports that piracy is good for revenue, search engine removed 5.3m links in a week for copyright holders

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Google took down a record-breaking 5.3 million allegedly infringing links from its search engine in the last week of September, equivalent to just under nine links every second.

The data, released as part of Google's transparency report, shows a significant rise in the number of takedown notices filed by copyright holders to Google over the last year.

Google was forced to remove 5.3m pirate links in the last week of September.

Between July and October 2012 copyright holders sent Google about 1.8m link takedown notices a week, increasing to 2.8m a week in November 2012 and 3.8m in mid-December 2012.

In February 2013, takedown notices hit 3.8m a week, increasing to 4.47m at the end of March, and finally peaking in the final week of September hitting 5.3m spanning 37,413 domains from 5,407 copyright owners, which marked a 4008% increase over the first notice listings by Google in July 2011.

Examples of the links Google received takedown requests against.

Evidence does not support the claims

In contrast to the increasing action of copyright holders, a report published (PDF) by the London School of Economics (LSE) has found that "evidence does not support claims about overall revenue reduction due to individual online copyright infringement".

"The marketing benefits and sales boosts arising from the sharing of films online are starting to be seen as compensating for losses in revenue due to infringing sharing, and the digital world is thriving on ubiquitous digital content sharing."

In fact, according to the report, UK revenues from online music were higher than revenues for both CDs and vinyl combined for the first time in 2013, showing growth in the sector. Worldwide sales of recorded music also increased in 2012 for the first time since 1999.

The movie industry is seeing growth too, despite the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) claims that piracy is devastating its bottom line. Global box office revenues hit $35bn in 2012, marking a 6% increase on 2011, according to the report.

"File-sharers in the UK were found to spend more on content than those who only consumed legal content, demonstrating the potential boost to legal digital content sales as a result of content sampling."

The report concludes that those industries that have embraced digital distribution are seeing increases in revenues, that online sharing has benefits for media creation and that "evidence-based legislation on copyright enforcement is needed that independently assesses the claims of the dominant creative industry firms and the impacts on users in the light of today’s digital culture."

• In September, the movie industry's trade body lambasted Google and other search engine providers for doing too little to prevent people finding pirated content online.