Faced with illegal streaming, torrents, and IPTV, rights holders are using a now well-known technique. They report objectionable addresses to Google, which then works to remove them from its search engine. In a recent transparency report published by the web giant, we have just learned of a figure that leaves one wondering. We even want to say to ourselves, all that for that. Explanations.
10 billion withdrawal requests
DMCA notices are the name given to this procedure which has made it possible to report pirated content for over ten years now. According to the transparency report published by the technology company, these withdrawal requests currently exceed 10 billion.
As observed by the specialized site TorrentFreakthe curve is anything but linear. Requests were initially modest before increasing dramatically. In 2016, we ended up passing the total of one billion DMCA notices.
Then, this progress ended up stagnating due to a new strategy implemented by the search engine. In fact, the latter has somewhat modified its algorithms to make this illegal content less visible in the results.
It only lasted for a while. Last summer, Google recorded the 7 billionth takedown request before the numbers got even worse and we reached 10 billion. Today, Google receives approximately 2.5 billion DMCA notices per year, or 5,000 per minute!
Piracy is not decreasing
We are therefore entitled to question the effectiveness of this strategy. In fact, illegal actors have gotten into the habit of circumventing blocking and delisting by creating mirror sites that duplicate the content of a portal. As for Internet users, while some are confused and may choose to stop hacking, many are turning to VPN or DNS services.
Despite this pressure falling on pirate sites, we can only note that consultation of these offers has not really decreased. To cite just one recent survey carried out by Odoxa, 5% of French people, or around 2.5 million of our fellow citizens, use illegal means to view meetings (IPTV or illegal streaming).
At the same time, this practice is in no way singled out, and 6 out of 10 French people even explain that they understand this behavior. They consider that the subscription prices of streaming platforms and pay television channels are too high. Do not hesitate to consult this study in more detail in our previous article here.
