Starting next week, Google will be changing their search algorithms in a way that will hurt sites with many copyright infractions. Those sites with high numbers of copyright infringement notices will be downgraded in the search results. According to Google, the change will "help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily—whether it’s a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify."
Google claims that the total number of copyright infringement notices they process every day in 2012 is more than they did for the entire year in 2009. In the last 30 days alone, they have seen notices for 4.3 million URL's. The data collected from this work will be applied as a signal in the general search process.
Since copyright infringement can only be determined by a court, Google will not remove webpages from their searches, only downgrade them in rank due to number of infringement claims. As Amit Singhal of Google writes:
"Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law. So while this new signal will influence the ranking of some search results, we won’t be removing any pages from search results unless we receive a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner. And we’ll continue to provide "counter-notice" tools so that those who believe their content has been wrongly removed can get it reinstated. We’ll also continue to be transparent about copyright removals."
The motive for this change in Google's policy is a matter of speculation. Perhaps they are moving to conciliate the media companies. An article at The Verge is pushing this interpretation of events.
The original statement from Google can be seen here.
