Google has made some changes recently in an effort to fight piracy. They have released a 26 page PDF titled How Google Fights Piracy that you can read if you want to know all the details. The key point seems to be an effort to highlight legitimate resources where people can legally purchase (or rent) music, movies, and other digital content. Google says “The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.”
The PDF (or “white pages” as some have termed it) mentions Google Play and points that Android users can visit Google Play and legally purchase music, movies, TV shows, ebooks, apps, and games. The implication is that Google Play is an example of “the right combination of price, convenience, and inventory”.
Google also gives details regarding copyright removal notices and ranking. Websites that have had a high number of removal notices may appear lower in search engine results. In other words, a new algorithm will push websites that have had a lot of valid copyright removal requests lower in the search rankings. I think the idea is to make it easier for people to find legitimate sources of content by making those websites appear higher in the ranking.
There has also been a change to Google’s autocomplete. Google has taken steps to prevent “terms closely associated with piracy” from appearing an the autocomplete. At the same time, they are putting links to legitimate sources of copyrighted content that match your search into the right hand panel (where the ads appear).
This change also goes along with one of Google’s anti-piracy principles, specifically the one that can be summarized as “follow the money”. Part of that principle states: “Rogue sites that specialize in online piracy are commercial ventures, which means the most effective way to combat them is to cut off their money supply”.