THE number of requests by rights holders to have content removed from Google has doubled in the last month, according to the search engine’s transparency report.
Telegraph Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), copyright holders have the right to demand that websites take down links which point to content infringing their rights. One of the main recipients of those rapidly increasing requests is Google.
During the last four weeks, the number of such takedown requests sent to the search engine has doubled to almost 1,5 million URLs per week.
And over the same period Google fielded requests from rights holders and anti-piracy bodies to remove 5,7 million URLs from its search results.
This time last year, weekly URL takedown requests were at 131 577 — compared to the 1,5 million now received by the search engine.
Earlier this year the search engine began publishing its transparency report, which it updates continually, to show the level of takedown requests it receives, the source and how many it complies with.
