Annex I - Gestdem 2018/0793

Ref. Ares(2018)1522652 - 20/03/2018

List of documents

P. 02 1. Powerpoint Presentation by Audible Magic dated 11 July 2016 (Ref. Ares(2017)4595074) P. 14 2. Presentation by Audible Magic: Content Recognition Technology (Ref. Ares(2017)312988) P.28 3. Document - Audible Magic Services Description (Ref. Ares(2017)4595115) 4. Email from Mike Edwards to DG CNECT dated 7 April 2016 and attachment (PowerPoint P. 33 Presentation) (Ref. Ares(2017)4053880) 5. Email from Mike Edwards to DG CNECT dated 7 April 2016 and attachment (Reply to the P. 46 Copyright office) (Ref. Ares(2017)4053919) 6. Email from Mike Edwards to DG CNECT dated 12 January 2017 (Ref. Ares(2017)4054021) P. 54 7. Email from Mike Edwards to CAB Ansip dated 29 June 2017 and attachments (Presentation on Content Recognition Technology; Audible Magic-content recognition technology.pdf) (Ref. Ares(2017)3257224) P. 55 8. Document provided by Google – Comments on the development of the joint strategic plan on intellectual property enforcement (Ref. Ares(2018)1381117) P. 74 9. Document provided by Google – How Google fights piracy 2016 (Ref. Ares(2018)1381255) P. 114 10. Document provided by Google during presentation held in 2015 (Ref. Ares(2018)1381336) P. 175 11. Presentation of Blue Efficience at the European Parliament on 29 November 2016 (Ref. Ref. Ares(2018)1373424) P. 195

1 www.audiblemagic.com Licensing of Copyrighted Content on Powering the Compliance and Social Video Networks Audible Magic CorporationMagic Audible Ref. Ares(2017)4595074-16/08/2017 2 Doc. 1 Audible Magic Overview

Business Audible Magic is the defacto standard for copyright compliance services to online platforms and networks. The services identify Overview copyrighted music and television/film in user generated video uploads

Online platforms including Dailymotion, Soundcloud, Spinnup, Customers Facebook, Twitch, Vimeo, Tumblr & Partners Content owners including Canal+, RTL, PIAS, Merlin, Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Fox, NBCU, Disney/ABC

• Industry leader and pioneer of content identification technology • In production processing over 4B transactions a year Key • Accurate and robust technology with over 30 patents granted Strengths • Embedded in customer infrastructure/workflow • Services paid for by the social video platforms. No financial relationship with content owners

Company • Founded in 1999 Background • Offices in Los Gatos, Berkeley, and London

3 Range of Content Identification Technologies

ID Tech Description Effectiveness Cost/file Comment Not a good filter Matches words contained File Name <5% <0.001€ High false negative and in file name false positive rates Not a good filter File Hash Matches file bits exactly <10% <0.0001€ unless paired with other ID technology Good for identifying Matches embedded mark Watermark <10% <0.01-.05€ premium content. Little either visual or audible content is watermarked Standard today for Fingerprint Matches perceptual <0.005 - production. Range of (image, characteristics compared to 80-99% .05€ accuracy among audio, video) original technologies Not practical for primary Human Manual review <50% > 1€ identification process Review Good for counter-notice

Effectiveness – How much of the targeted content is matched?

4 Content Identification Fingerprinting

1. Building a Reference Database

Inherent Reference Database Characteristics of Registrations

A1,B3,C4 A1,B3,C4 Fred

Reference A2,B4,C8 Sally Database A6,B7,C4 John Fred S.

2. Matching Unknowns to the References

A2,B4,C8 Match Reference Sally Database

5 Powering Social Video Industry’s Copyright Compliance Systems

Online Platform

Ingest Post/Publish

Uploader

• Content owners register their works into AM Content Registration databases Copyright • Online platforms integrate AM services to Compliance review at time of ingest (less than a day) Studios • AM notifies online platform of matches and Reference business rule Music Labels/ Database • Online platform blocks or allows posting of Publishers videos • Pricing is based upon number of files analyzed per month. Affordable for small online platforms.

6 Trusted 3rd Party Mediating Between Content and Online Platforms

7 Discussion Topics

•Why online platforms pay for content filtering

•Take Down, Stay Down Services

•Fair Use

•Evolution from compliance to licensing

8 Ability to Implement a Take Down Stay Down Service

Online Platform

Ingest Post/Publish

Uploader

• Use for Content • Previously taken down copyrighted Registration content Copyright • Content which has been deemed as Compliance inappropriate (sex, hate, or violence) Studios • Ensures exact content does not reappear Registered Take Down on the service Music Labels/ Content Stay Down Publishers • Reduces cost and volume of repeated notice and takedown

• Implemented by Myspace in 2008 and Dailymotion today

9 Content Filtering and Fair Use

• Industry practice: Online platforms have counter- notice/dispute resolution practices • User can dispute the blocking of their files • Human review

• Role of Content Filtering • Reviewed file can be fingerprinted and registered with the usage rule so automatically allowed or blocked in future

10 Too Many Deals Have to Be Done - Overwhelming for Both Sides

Online Online Online Online Online Online Platform Platform Platform Platform Platform Platform

In addition, each online platform has to create a set of tools/systems

11 A Simplified Solution With Standard Licensing and Comprehensive Tools

Compliance and Licensing Platform

Filter Claim License Track Report Collect Distribute

Online Online Online Online Online Online Platform Platform Platform Platform Platform Platform

12 The Future of Content Identification

• Technology is not static • Manipulations of content • Mashups and mixes • Musical compositions

• Evolution from compliance tool to enabling licensing and monetization

13 www.audiblemagic.com Content Recognition Technology: Balancing the Needs of Online Platforms, Creators and Users Audible Magic CorporationMagic Audible Ref. Ares(2017)312988-20/01/2017 14 Doc. 2 Audible Magic Overview

Business Audible Magic is a leading provider of automated content recognition technology to online platforms and networks. The services identify Overview copyrighted music and television/film in user generated video uploads

Online platforms including Dailymotion, Soundcloud, Spinnup, Twitch, Vimeo, Tumblr. Customers & Partners Content owners including Canal+, RTL, PIAS, Beggars Group, Merlin, Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Fox, NBCU, Disney/ABC

• Industry leader and pioneer of content identification technology • In production processing over 11B transactions in 2016 (4B in 2015) Key • Accurate and robust technology with over 30 patents granted Strengths • Embedded in customer infrastructure/workflow • Services paid for by the social video platforms. No financial relationship with content owners

Company • Founded in 1999 Background • Offices in Los Gatos, Berkeley, and London

15 ‘Effective’: A Range of Content Identification Technologies

ID Tech Description Effectiveness Cost/file* Comment Not a good filter Matches words contained File Name <5% <0.001€ High false negative and in file name false positive rates Not a good filter File Hash Matches file bits exactly <10% <0.0001€ unless paired with other ID technology Good for identifying Matches embedded mark Watermark <10% <0.01-.05€ premium content. Little either visual or audible content is watermarked Standard today for Fingerprint Matches perceptual <0.005 - production. Range of (image, characteristics compared to Up to 99+% .05€ accuracy among audio, video) original technologies Not practical for primary Human Manual review <50% > 1€ identification process Review Good for counter-notice

Effectiveness – How much of the targeted content is matched? *Cost per file is Audible Magic’s own estimate based on market knowledge, and may not reflect actual prices from individual vendors.

16 Content Identification Fingerprinting

1. Building a Reference Database

Inherent Reference Database Characteristics of Registrations

A1,B3,C4 A1,B3,C4 Fred

Reference A2,B4,C8 Sally Database A6,B7,C4 John Fred S.

2. Matching Unknowns to the References

A2,B4,C8 Match Reference Sally Database

17 Enabling Online Platforms to Identify Copyright Content

Online Platform

Ingest Post/Publish

Uploader

• Music, Film and TV content owners register Content Registration their works into AM databases Copyright • Online platforms integrate AM services to Compliance review at time of ingest (less than a day) Studios • AM notifies online platform of matches and Reference business rule Music Labels/ Database • Online platform allows, monetizes or blocks Publishers posting of videos • Pricing is based upon number of files analyzed per month. Affordable for small online platforms.

18 Trusted 3rd Party Mediating Between Content and Online Platforms

19 AM Customers Voluntarily Comply

•Highest standards demanded by copyright owners

•Good digital citizens

•Maintain good relations with copyright owners

•Pre-emption v takedown: • More efficient & less costly • Licensing opportunity • Better user experience 20 SME Case Studies

• Swedish start-up • Vietnamese start-up

• Distribute unsigned artists to paid • UGC video platform distribution platforms • Limited audience and ad revenue • Need: Prevent fraudulent uploads of potential (Vietnam-only) others’ creations • Around 5,000 uploads per month • Under 4,000 uploads per month • Affordable, proportionate ACR • Affordable, proportionate ACR service service • Growing, sustainable business • Success: Platinum artist in Sweden, Promotion/distribution deal with Island Records in UK

21 Tried & Tested Solution for 10 Years

• Effective and Accurate

• 99.9% match rate (< 0.1% false negatives).

• Less than 0.0001% false positives.

• In Use for a Decade • On world’s most popular online platforms. • 11 billion uploads checked in 2016 (up from 4.5 B in 2015) • Non-controversial: accepted by users and copyright owners. • Small start-ups using the ACR service have grown to be major global online platforms: SoundCloud, Dailymotion.

• Affordable and Scalable: from €500 or less per month.

• Review processes in place for copyright exceptions. 22 ACR Creates a Level Playing Field

• Enables clear distinction between genuine User- Generated Content and unauthorised commercial music/film/TV uploads

• Removes ‘Value gap’ barrier to entry for paid online content platforms • Audible Magic ‘white label’ ACR + Content Management Systems enable European start-ups to compete on a level playing field with global giants.

23 A Simplified Licensing Solution: Standard Licensing and Comprehensive Tools

Compliance and Licensing Platform

Recognise Claim License Track Report Collect Distribute

Online Online Online Online Online Online Platform Platform Platform Platform Platform Platform

24 APPENDIX

25 Ability to Implement a Take Down Stay Down Service

Online Platform

Ingest Post/Publish

Uploader

• Use for Content • Previously taken down copyrighted Registration content Copyright • Content which has been deemed as Compliance Studios inappropriate (sex, hate, or violence) • Ensures exact content does not reappear Registered Take Down Music Labels/ Content Stay Down on the service Publishers • Reduces cost and volume of repeated notice and takedown

• Implemented since 2008: e.g. Myspace and Dailymotion

26 The Future of Content Identification

• Technology is not static • Manipulations of content • Mashups and mixes • Musical compositions

• Evolution from compliance tool to enabling licensing and monetization

27 Ref. Ares(2017)4595115 - 16/08/2017

Doc. 3

AM SERVICES DESCRIPTION The AM Software and AM Services provided by Audible Magic (“AM”) will operate in accordance with the OEM Application Programming Guide and Customer Support Information documents (Version 22.15g). To the extent of any conflict between the OEM API SDK Programmers Guide and this Agreement, the terms of this Agreement shall control. The specific nature and scope of AM Services to Customer must be documented in the Project Statement, Attachment C of the Agreement. This document may describe services that are ultimately not provided to the customer because they were not included in Project Statement or the Agreement, once concluded. Overview of Service Functionality 1. The Service’s technology consists of a software library installed in Customer’s operating environment, a Hosted Service, and a Content Registry that includes reference Fingerprints, Business Rules, Metadata, and Identification Information associated with content files. 2. The software library resides on the Customer’s servers. Customer is responsible for installing this software library and AM shall provide support for this installation. 3. The software library processes the unknown content sample and creates an ID request package in the form of an encrypted XML string and will pass an unknown content sample and other specified Metadata to the Content Registry. 4. Customer’s application then sends this XML package to AM’s Hosted Service. An XML response is returned to the Customer. If a match is made against the Content Registry, corresponding information including Business Rule, Metadata, and other Identification Information is included in the response. Otherwise, notice that no match was found is returned. 5. Customer is responsible for integrating information flow from the return XML and taking the appropriate action. Detailed Service Descriptions All levels of AM Services return a response, whether or not a match was made. If a piece of content is identified, the return information will include the Business Rule, or “action”, specified in the Content Registry by the owner of that content. The default action is “Block”. Other actions include “Allow” and “Share” where “Share” means to track for revenue sharing purposes. Type-1 i20 Music Identification Service – This service is intended to match a copyrighted recording present in an unknown file or stream (at the beginning of the unknown) against recordings registered in Audible Magic’s Commercial Music Registry.

Type-1 i20 Music Identification Service

28 This Service will submit a Transaction consisting of a Fingerprint from the first 30 seconds of the unknown file to the AM Hosted Service using a database containing the initial 30 seconds of all the recordings in the Commercial Music Registry. The service uses a subset of the submitted unknown Fingerprint, starting several seconds in which allows for a few seconds of silence in the beginning. This Fingerprint is then queried against the database for matches with a 10 5 second window, so if a user cuts off the first few seconds or leaves a longer quiet period at the beginning, the file will still be matched. Type-3 i20 Music Identification Service - This service is intended to match selected samples from an unknown file or stream against recordings registered in Audible Magic’s Licensing and Reporting Registry.

Type-3 i20 Music Identification Service

This service will submit one or more Transactions from one unknown file or stream, each Transaction consisting of a Fingerprint of thirty seconds of the unknown to the AM Hosted Service using the AM Licensing and Reporting Registry. The AM Licensing and Reporting Registry is optimized for the identification of music listened to by consumers and utilized in social media. AM uses its proprietary algorithms to identify popular major music label and indie label content which is available worldwide. These algorithms take into account such factors as the content identified by AM services across all of its customers and new music registered by labels participating in its registration program. Each Transaction is compared against all Fingerprints in the Content Registry. If the Fingerprint matches any part of a song, then that match is returned. Type-3 i20 TV/Film Clip Identification Service –This service is intended to match selected samples from an unknown file or stream against content registered in Audible Magic’s TV and Movies Registry.

Type-3 i20 TV/Film Clip Identification Service

2 29 This service will submit one or more Transactions from one unknown file or stream, each Transaction consisting of thirty seconds of the unknown audio soundtrack to the AM Hosted Service using the TV and Movies Registry. The TV and Movies Registry contains Fingerprints of the entire length of all the soundtracks from television and movies registered by the major studios and independents. Generally the major studios register their ‘high value’ properties and do not register the entirety of their catalogs. Each Transaction is compared against all Fingerprints in the Content Registry. If the Fingerprint matches any part of a soundtrack, then that match is returned. Type-3 i5 Music Identification Service - This service is intended to match selected samples from an unknown file or stream against recordings registered in Audible Magic’s Licensing and Reporting Registry.

Type-3 i5 Music Identification Service

This service will submit one or more Transactions from one unknown file or stream, each Transaction consisting of a Fingerprint of 6 seconds of the unknown to the AM Hosted Service using the AM Licensing and Reporting Registry. The AM i5 Music Registry contains Fingerprints of the entire length of all the songs from major music label and non-major label content which has been i) identified by AM services across all of its customers in the last several months and ii) recently registered by music labels, whether or not it has been identified yet in AM deployment. Each Transaction is compared against all Fingerprints in the Content Registry. If the Fingerprint matches any part of a song, then that match is returned. Type-3 i5 TV/Film Clip Identification Service –This service is intended to match selected samples from an unknown file or stream against content registered in Audible Magic’s TV and Movies Registry.

Type-3 i5 TV/Film Clip Identification Service

3 30 This service will submit one or more Transactions from one unknown file or stream, each Transaction consisting of 6 seconds of the unknown audio soundtrack to the AM Hosted Service using the TV and Movies Registry. The TV and Movies Registry contains Fingerprints of the entire length of all the soundtracks from television and movies registered by the major studios and independents. Generally the major studios register their ‘high value’ properties and do not register the entirety of their catalogs. Each Transaction is compared against all Fingerprints in the Content Registry. If the Fingerprint matches any part of a soundtrack, then that match is returned. Type-4 i20 Broad Spectrum Music Identification Service - This service is optimized for detection of copyright music with added tolerance for detection of transformations of the original recording by altering pitch, speed or tempo. The service matches a sample selected at regular intervals from an unknown file or stream against reference recordings in the AM Broad Spectrum Content Registry. The service will submit, as a single Transaction, a Fingerprint of all or part of the unknown file or stream, up to a maximum of 10 minutes. To analyze more than the first ten minutes of any unknown file or stream, it may be divided into segments of 10 minutes, and fingerprints of each successive segment submitted as a separate Transaction. The Type-4 process will then take a sample (the “Lookup Sample”) from the fingerprints at regular pre-determined intervals (the Hop Value) throughout the duration of the unknown fingerprint and compare each such Lookup Sample against all the fingerprints in the AM Broad Spectrum Content Registry. If the Lookup Sample matches any part of a song, including any version of a song that has been transformed by altering speed, pitch or tempo, then that match is returned. The Accuracy provisions of the Service Level Agreement shall apply to this Type-4 i20 Broad Spectrum Music Identification Service only to the extent that (i) the content in the Lookup Sample that has been submitted to the AM Services has not been transformed by changes in pitch, speed or tempo, and (ii) no fewer than 21 seconds of contiguous audio from the copyrighted recording is present in the Lookup Sample submitted to the AM Services The Broad Spectrum Content Registry is a database that is compiled and maintained by Audible Magic according to algorithms which take into account detection rates and recent chart activity across multiple markets.

Copyrighted Content Databases – AM’s Content Identification Services utilize AM’s copyrighted content databases which include the Commercial Music Registry, the Major Label Music Registry, the Reporting and Licensing Registry, and the TV and Movies Registry. These databases consist of Fingerprints, Metadata, and Business Rules registered by Content Owners. This content is ingested and deployed within one day of receipt from Content Owners. AM does not charge or pay Content Owners for registration. Additional Services Many AM customers have very specific needs, and we have developed additional services to address those needs. These services are only available in conjunction with the content identification service, and pricing for them may or may not already be included in the proposal. AM business development would be happy to explain these services in detail. Archive Management – Because AM’s Content Registries are rapidly growing and the potential delay time between the content owner registering the content and AM ingestion, some files previously submitted by a Customer may match content registered at a later date. This service processes Customer’s previously unidentified files to discover newly registered content previously unidentified. Fingerprints of the files not matched on the initial identification attempt linked to the Customer’s unique identifier are stored by AM. These stored Fingerprints are then automatically rechecked periodically against newly added Fingerprints. When a match is made, the Metadata and Business Rules associated with the newly identified files are returned to the Customer with Customer’s identifier. Customer is responsible for updating its library based on this information.

4 31 Backlog Processing – This service enables Customer to batch process existing archives of content using AM Services. Transaction concurrency rates will be jointly agreed to meet the timeframes for processing. The processing period may range from 4 weeks to 6 months. Custom Business Rules – In order to simplify management of Business Rules, this service provides a custom solution to precisely meet Customer’s needs. Possible configurations include limiting service to a subset of the music or video soundtrack registries, or, if Customer has licensed rights from a content owner, this service can be used to manage Business Rules specific to such deals that may differ from the general Business Rules available to other customers. Submitted Content Database – This service enables Customer to prevent content from re-appearing on their site once a decision to take it down has been made. When the Customer finds content that is unwanted for any reason (examples include inappropriate content, profane speech, pornography, DMCA notice, hate speech, Terms of Use violations, etc.) it adds a Fingerprint of it to this custom registry. Customer can then test newly uploaded content against this custom registry, using the methodology used for Type 1 Music Identification service. If a match is made the service returns “block.”

5 32 Ref. Ares(2017)4053880) - 16/08/2017

Doc. 4 From: @Audiblemagic.com] Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2016 4:47 PM Personal Data To: (CNECT) Cc: Ikezoye, Vance Subject: Audible Magic presentation

Dear , Thank you very much for seeing Vance and I this morning. It was great to see you again. I have attached a copy of the presentation that Vance used for our discussion. I would be very grateful if you could circulate it to all of those who attended the meeting. Kind regards,

Audible Magic LLC Europe, Middle East & Africa 117 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8UL, United Kingdom T: Personal Data F: M: email: @audiblemagic.com Skype: www.audiblemagic.com

This message is intended for the use of the addressee only and may contain confidential information and trade secrets of Audible Magic. Unauthorized use or disclosure is prohibited.

33 www.audiblemagic.com Licensing of Copyrighted Content on Powering the Compliance and Social Video Networks Audible Magic Corporation Magic Audible 34 Audible Magic Overview

Business Audible Magic is the defacto standard for copyright compliance services to social video platforms and networks. The services identify Overview copyrighted music and television/film in user generated video uploads

Social video and networks including Facebook, Twitch, Vimeo, Customers Dailymotion, Soundcloud, Tumblr & Partners Content owners including Canal+, RTL, Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Fox, NBCU, Disney/ABC, Warner Bros

• Industry leader and pioneer of content identification technology • In production processing over 4B transactions a year Key • Strengths Accurate and robust technology with over 30 patents granted • Embedded in customer infrastructure/workflow • Direct content feeds from content owners

Company • Founded in 1999 Background • Offices in Los Gatos, Berkeley, and London

35 Content Identification Fingerprinting vs Watermarking

Fingerprinting Inherent Characteristics Reference Database of Registrations Match A1,B3,C4 A1,B3,C4 Fred Fred

Database A2,B4,C8 Sally

A6,B7,C4 John

Watermarking Reference Database Applied of Registrations Characteristics Match Bob Bob

Database David

Mary

36 Technology Deployed Across a Range of Applications, Devices, and Infrastructure

Technology STB Deployments Consumer Live Apps Broadcast Distributed Broadcast Capture Mobile Devices

AM Hosted Live Local DB Services TVs Reference Programs Pre- DB Hosted DB Recorded Set-top Boxes Advertising OS Support • Common programming platform provides • Linux • Windows applications portability and adoption across Servers, • iOS devices and systems Headends • Android Infrastructure • Technology investments leveraged across • OS X markets and benefit all customers

37 Strategic Relationships with Content Owners and Distributors

38 www.audiblemagic.com Licensing/Compliance 39 Powering Social Video Industry’s Copyright Compliance Systems

Content Sharing/Social Networks

Ingest Post/Publish

Uploader

• Content owners register their works into AM databases Content • Social video sites integrate AM services to Registration review at time of ingest (less than a day) Copyright Compliance • AM notifies site of matches and business Studios rule • Site blocks or allows posting of videos Registered Music Labels/ Content • Pricing is based upon number of files Publishers analyzed per month. Affordable for small sites.

40 AM Transaction Mirrors Market Growth

Transactions with Transactions Copyrighted Music (MM/year) (MM/year) 4500 140

4000 120 3500 100 3000 2500 80 2000 60 1500 40 1000 500 20 0 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2012 2013 2014 2015

41 Ability to Implement a Take Down Stay Down Service

• Use for • Previously taken down copyrighted content • Content which has not been previously registered. • Content which has been deemed as inappropriate (sex, hate, or violence)

• Ensures exact content does not reappear on the service

Take Down • Implemented by Myspace in 2008 Staydown and Dailymotion today.

42 Take Down Stay Down Implementation

Content Sharing/Social Networks

Ingest Post/Publish

Uploader

• All files are checked against both Content database automatically Registration Copyright Compliance Studios

Registered Take Down Music Labels/ Content Stay Down Publishers

43 Benefits

•Online Services • Reduces the cost and effort of dealing with take down notices • Reduces the volume of unauthorized copyrighted content on the site

•Copyright Owners • Reduces the cost and effort of dealing with take down notices • Reduces the volume of unauthorized copyrighted content

44 Too Many Deals Have to Be Done - Overwhelming for Both Sides

UGC Site UGC Site UGC Site UGC Site UGC Site UGC Site

In addition, each site has to create a set of tools/systems

45 Ref. Ares(2017)4053919 - 16/08/2017

Doc. 5 From: @Audiblemagic.com] Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2016 7:32 PM To: (CNECT) Personal Data Cc: Ikezoye, Vance Subject: RE: Audible Magic presentation

Hi , I mentioned the response that we made to the US Copyright Office questionnaire on S.512. It is probably been published on the copyright office website by now, but if not, here is a copy. You may find it to a useful supplement to the slide deck I sent earlier. It is now a public document, so you may of course distribute as you wish. Kind regards,

46 Comment Regarding Section 512 Study United States Copyright Office

Commenter Background These comments are respectfully submitted by Audible Magic Corporation. Audible Magic Corporation is a technology company which provides copyright compliance and licensing services. Audible Magic products and services are used by social media and video platforms, higher educational institutions, software developers, and media companies. Executives from the company have testified before Congress about solutions to digital intellectual property protection and submitted an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court which was later cited in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. Audible Magic holds 27 U.S. patents and 7 European patents. Audible Magic was founded in 1999 and is a U.S. Corporation. The company has in-depth expertise with certain aspects of intellectual property protection. Our comments come from this expertise. We are pleased to offer our perspective to the US Copyright Office in response to the section 512 Study. Since 2006 Audible Magic has provided copyright content filtering services to online social media services that operate sites distributing user-uploaded content, and has become the de facto standard for voluntary filtering, widely accepted by both site operators and content owners. Our technology and services are described in detail in our response to question 15 below. Interested parties are encouraged to contact Vance Ikezoye as Audible Magic’s representative in this matter. Our contact information is: Audible Magic Corporation 985 University Avenue Suite 35 Los Gatos, CA 95032 Phone: (408) 399-6405 Email: [email protected]

Notice-and-Takedown Process 7. How efficient or burdensome is section 512’s notice-and-takedown process for addressing online infringement? Is it a workable solution over the long run?

Audible Magic: The section 512 notice and takedown process while providing a ‘last resort’ means of addressing online infringement, is not necessarily the most efficient or effective process for either the online service provider or the copyright owners. Because this process occurs ‘after the fact’, it adds unnecessary operational and financial burdens on both sides. This process is increasingly automated and has become an ‘arms race’ between the copyright owners and the users of the online service providers. In addition, since there is a built in delay to recognize the infringement, the process is ineffective as a feedback mechanism to the original user or uploader.

US Copyright Office Section 512 Study Audible Magic Corporation March 21, 2016 47 With more than ten years’ experience in providing copyright compliance services to online social media and storage services; we can state that the voluntary adoption of automated proactive filtering has proved to be effective and efficient for both the online services and the copyright owners. Copyright owners are able to ensure that their entire catalogue of copyright content is protected as the result of a single, simple registration with our company. Likewise, online services that are customers of Audible Magic are able to install and implement our compliance service in a very simple process, and thereafter are able to automatically prevent the upload of infringing files, thus drastically reducing the burden of dealing with millions of individual takedown notices.

8. In what ways does the process work differently for individuals, small-scale entities, and/or large-scale entities that are sending and/or receiving takedown notices?

Audible Magic: Here again we can show the advantages of voluntary pre-emptive filtering over the issuing/receiving of takedown notices. Individual creators of copyright content and small companies have the same opportunity as large companies to register their content with Audible Magic. For even the smallest copyright entities or individuals, registration can be achieved free of charge through a simple drag-and-drop online process. For the online services, lack of scale is no barrier, either from a technical point of view or from cost. Audible Magic has mature APIs that have been tried and tested in the market for more than a decade. They are quick, simple and inexpensive to install, and once installed will require very little in the way of maintenance to ensure copyright compliance year after year. While prices vary with scale and the types of services provided, compliance services can be obtained for less than $1,000 per month.

9. Please address the role of both ‘‘human’’ and automated notice-and takedown processes under section 512, including their respective feasibility, benefits, and limitations.

Audible Magic: Audible Magic’s technology is used by the operators of over one hundred college networks in two ways: 1) to pre-emptively detect and initiate enforcement activities against unauthorized transfers of copyright files, 2) to automatically review the correctness of any copyright claims made in notices received by the network operators from copyright owners under section 512. This automated process provides substantial savings compared to the cost of human reviews of claims.

10. Does the notice-and-takedown process sufficiently address the reappearance of infringing material previously removed by a service provider in response to a notice? If not, what should be done to address this concern?

Audible Magic: The problem of dealing with repeated uploads of the same infringing material is frequently raised by online service providers and by copyright owners. Audible Magic provides a simple and inexpensive automated solution for this problem. In addition to our Music, and Film & TV Soundtrack Identification services, Audible Magic offers customers a Private Content database service. This service enables the customer to prevent content from re-appearing on their site once they have decided for any reason to take it down, whether because it is infringing

US Copyright Office Section 512 Study Audible Magic Corporation March 21, 2016 48 copyright, or because it contains inappropriate content, profane speech, pornography, hate speech, Terms of Use violations, etc. The ‘takedown and staydown’ service adds a fingerprint of the unwanted material to a private registry used only by that customer. The customer can then test newly uploaded content against this custom registry as well as against our general copyright databases.

11. Are there technologies or processes that would improve the efficiency and/or effectiveness of the notice-and-takedown process?

Audible Magic: See the response to questions 7, 8 and 10 above.

12. Does the notice-and-takedown process sufficiently protect against fraudulent, abusive or unfounded notices? If not, what should be done to address this concern?

Audible Magic: As set out in our response to Question 9 above, our technology is currently being used by many of our network operator customers to review the correctness of takedown notices by checking network logs at the time and date of the alleged infringing file transfer to verify whether an unauthorized transfer of the infringing file actually took place.

15. Please describe, and assess the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of, voluntary measures and best practices - including financial measures, content ‘‘filtering’’ and takedown procedures -that have been undertaken by interested parties to supplement or improve the efficacy of section 512’s notice-and takedown process.

Audible Magic: In this section we will describe and discuss the services we provide to enable sites to carry out voluntary copyright content filtering of content uploaded by the public. Audible Magic’s Technology Audible Magic’s technology and services are based upon its patented media identification and classification technology, and its extensive reference database of digital fingerprints of copyrighted music and other digital content. Its digital fingerprinting and filtering technology is designed to filter, monitor, track, and manage copyrighted multimedia content. Digital fingerprinting is an audio recognition technology. It provides a robust method of precisely identifying digital music and movie/video soundtrack content, regardless of source or format (e.g., MP3 download, WAV file, streaming audio signal, compact disc, DVD, or radio broadcast). The analysis performed by Audible Magic’s technology produces a set of mathematical values called a “feature vector” or “digital fingerprint,” which is unique to a particular master recording. In essence, each digital fingerprint identifies a master recording, much as a human fingerprint identifies a person. The “fingerprints” are precise enough to differentiate between various live and studio performances of a single song. The fingerprints are also very small, which makes their use practical in blocking or monetizing the unauthorized distribution and copying of recordings.

Audible Magic’s Reference Databases Audible Magic maintains a vast database of copyrighted music and audio-visual soundtracks. The database is populated by both large and small copyright owners from all over the world. Registration of fingerprints with Audible Magic is free of charge. Larger content owners and

US Copyright Office Section 512 Study Audible Magic Corporation March 21, 2016 49 those with adequate technical resources are able to incorporate Audible Magic’s signature generation software into their digital supply chains. We have also authorized several digital services providers to carry out this function for those content owners who do not have the resources or who choose not to carry out this function themselves. Smaller companies and individual creators are able to register their content free of charge through an easy-to-use web portal. Copyright owners have the facility to register business rules that will inform individual sites how their content should be handled. Common business rules are “Block”, “Allow” or “Monetize”. Audible Magic has ingested over 24 million fingerprints of copyright content since its establishment in 1999, and currently ingests new fingerprints at a rate of around 250,000 each month. Audible Magic’s Services Industry-leading social media, user-generated-content sharing and cloud file sharing networks have made Audible Magic the premier provider of copyright compliance information services for more than a decade. Platform providers dramatically reduce copyright-infringing media sharing using Audible Magic software and hosted services. The process detects registered audio and video content in the user upload stream. Hosted information services then report back the copyright-handling wishes registered by copyright owners. Many social platforms also manage direct-licensing arrangements with content owners using the same Audible Magic identification services. Online services that use our Audible Magic copyright compliance services include Facebook, Dailymotion, SoundCloud, and Twitch. The diagram below illustrates how the service is implemented.

The Effectiveness of Content Filtering In the last 12 months, customers using Audible Magic’s services have prevented over 150 million files containing copyright protected music, film or TV clips from being uploaded and distributed via their sites without the authorization of the copyright owners. This process goes on

US Copyright Office Section 512 Study Audible Magic Corporation March 21, 2016 50 automatically, in the background, 24 hours a day, seven days a week without any further effort on the part of the copyright owner or the site operator. The process has led to a change in user behavior. When content filtering services were first introduced over a decade ago, user uploads in which copyright content was detected accounted for an average of 15% to 20% of all uploads. With our automated compliance services in place, this average across Audible Magic’s customer base has declined to between 5% to 8% of all uploads. Clearly, the users of these sites have reduced their copyright violating activity. Although, as we have illustrated, the vast majority of attempted uploads of copyright sound recordings are detected and prevented at the point of upload, a small minority of attempts to upload copyright content goes undetected by our system. This may be due to a number of reasons:  Content not in the reference database at the time of upload: o Not all copyright owners avail themselves of our free service to register their content with Audible Magic. o Some content ‘leaks’ from the copyright owner’s production process prior to registration. o Live performances by artists, e.g. on TV appearances, are often not recorded and registered by the copyright owners  Deliberate Obfuscation: o Users will deliberately obfuscate copyright sound recordings to evade detection by filtering systems by introducing additional audio artifacts, or increasing or decreasing speed, pitch or tempo. As a result of these deliberate obfuscation techniques, the filtering services that were extremely effective ten years ago, would be less effective today. Audible Magic gathers feedback on the effectiveness of its content filtering technology as an ongoing process. We have used this data to improve our services and develop new services to meet these challenges. Today Audible Magic offers services that can detect these deliberately obfuscated recordings. It is worth noting that this constant evolution of services is being carried out in a flexible, voluntary, unregulated environment. The copyright infringement issues change over time and it is important that technology is able to evolve to meet any new challenges. If legislators were to consider more prescriptive regulation, it is important that any such regulation does not have the effect of ‘freezing the technology in time’. Trusted Third Party There is value in content filtering being carried out by a third party trusted by both copyright owners and online services. Audible Magic has built close relationships with all the major record labels (UMG, Sony, Warner) and the major music aggregators/associations (Orchard, IODA, IRIS, Merlin), which manage content from thousands of independent labels and artists. We also have close relationships with the major TV and movie studios, including NBCU, Fox, Viacom/MTV, Warner Bros, Sony Pictures, Disney/ABC, canal+ and RTL. We have ingested over 25 million sound recordings and film and TV soundtracks. We currently ingest around 250,000 new fingerprints every month. We invest a great deal of resources in continually developing and expanding our database, to the extent that today we have the most comprehensive database of its kind.

US Copyright Office Section 512 Study Audible Magic Corporation March 21, 2016 51 Our customers are the websites, social networks, and digital services. We do not pay, nor are we paid by, the copyright owners. Nevertheless we are regarded by the copyright owners and online services as a highly trusted third party. As such we have been able to facilitate dialogue and the settlement of disputes, and to encourage and facilitate licensing agreements between these parties. Content filtering carried out by a third party intermediary benefits all parties. For the online services, the filtering service is a turnkey solution. With the high cost of developing a highly effective content identification technology and system, the online service does not need to make this investment nor are they forced to make judgments about how the filter performs – the answer they receive is either that the content is registered in our database or it is not. Once the online service deploys this filter, the copyright owner has the responsibility to ensure their content is registered and therefore protected. Since it is free, there is no excuse for not registering. Copyright owners are skeptical of content filtering owned and controlled by the online service itself, because online services may be motivated to deploy a ‘leaky filter’. Leaky filters would identify and block less content. As they say, you don’t want the fox to be in charge of counting the number of chickens in the hen house. This skepticism destroys the trust that is essential for the development of copyright licensing arrangements, which in turn are necessary for the prosperity and growth of the online content marketplace. Since Audible Magic is an independent 3rd party, copyright owners have confidence that their content is identified correctly. Legal Standards 19. Assess courts’ interpretations of the ‘‘actual’’ and ‘‘red flag’’ knowledge standards under the section 512 safe harbors, including the role of ‘‘willful blindness’’ and section 512(m)(1) (limiting the duty of a service provider to monitor for infringing activity) in such analyses. How are judicial interpretations impacting the effectiveness of section 512?

Audible Magic: We will refrain from making direct comments on the court’s interpretations of “actual” and “red flag” knowledge, as we do not feel qualified to address these policy standards. However, we feel that it would be helpful to examine whether the use of copyright identification and filtering services, such as Audible Magic, are encouraged or discouraged by section 512 monitoring limitations. Online services use Audible Magic technology to prevent the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content. When the Audible Magic technology identifies the presence of copyrighted content within a user upload it notifies the online service provider. Our customers’ systems will then automatically block the file from being distributed and will generally notify the user of this violation of their terms of use. This voluntary monitoring by the online service providers clearly benefits the copyright owners and dramatically reduces the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content, which is the ultimate objective of section 512. Therefore, online service providers should not be discouraged from utilizing systems such as ours. Although not directly addressed by the courts, the legislature’s intentions were clearly conveyed in the House Conference Report for reconciliation of the DMCA that “This legislation is not

US Copyright Office Section 512 Study Audible Magic Corporation March 21, 2016 52 intended to discourage the service provider from monitoring its service for infringing material. Courts should not conclude that the service provider loses eligibility for limitations on liability under section 512 solely because it engaged in a monitoring program.” House Conference Report 105-796 at 73 (October 8, 1998).

Thus we suggest that any rulings or decisions with respect to voluntary monitoring for the purpose of reducing the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works should remain consistent with the overall intent of section 512, and should not discourage the voluntary actions of well intentioned online service providers. Other Issues 30. Please identify and describe any pertinent issues not referenced above that the Copyright Office should consider in conducting its study. Audible Magic: The internet of today has changed dramatically since 1998 when section 512 was enacted. Since then we have experienced changes which have gone beyond the processes and requirements of the DMCA and established new norms which could not have been contemplated in 1998. In the first phase in this evolution, which covered the period of 1998 until 2006, the processes defined by section 512 and the DMCA were the sole means of dealing with unauthorized transmission of copyrighted content by online service providers. This period was characterized by the rapid adoption of new technologies and platforms with few controls over copyright content. In 2006, companies such as YouTubei and Myspace adopted services and technologies from Audible Magic that are now accepted as the de facto standard for copyright compliance for social media content-sharing sites around the world. These services were adopted voluntarily and benefited both the online services and the copyright owners. During this present period, the focus of these processes has been exclusively on the prevention of unauthorized transmission of copyright content. Now, some ten years later, the online services have developed more mature business models and along with the evolution of licensed content downloading and streaming services, the focus is shifting to the monetization of copyright content on these online services; services provided by Audible Magic to prevent infringement are being repurposed to enable licensing and monetization. We are now at an inflection point, where using technology and services such as Audible Magic can provide the foundation for a new world of access and creative use of copyright protected material for the benefit of the online services and the copyright owners. There is obviously room for improvement to ensure a reasonable balance between copyright holders’ and online services’ responsibilities and obligations with respect to the processes outlined by section 512. On the other hand, it is our hope that whatever changes are contemplated, do not hinder the market’s ability to evolve but rather encourage the development of services and business improvements to the benefit of copyright owners, online service providers, and consumers.

i YouTube no longer utilizes Audible Magic services. They have developed their own version of the technology, called ContentID.

US Copyright Office Section 512 Study Audible Magic Corporation March 21, 2016 53 Ref. Ares(2017)4054021 - 16/08/2017

Doc. 6 From: @Audiblemagic.com] Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2017 5:12 PM To: (CNECT) Personal Data Cc: Subject: Information video on Content recognition technology

Dear , We have prepared a short information video in English on how content recognition technology works in relation to internet platforms that allow user uploads of copyright music, film and TV content. It can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/198929871 Please feel free to share the link with whoever you would like. I look forward to speaking to you tomorrow. Kind regards,

Personal Data Audible Magic LLC Europe, Middle East & Africa

Studio 405, The Metal Box Factory 30 Great Guildford Street London SE1 0HS United Kingdom

T : M: email: @audiblemagic.com Skype: www.audiblemagic.com

54 Ref. Ares(2017)3257224 - 29/06/2017

Doc. 7 From: @Audiblemagic.com> Sent: 29 June 2017 13:22 Personal Data To: CAB ANSIP WEB; ANSIP Andrus (CAB-ANSIP) Cc: CNECT DESK Subject: Audible Magic - pricing Attachments: 2017-04-19 AM Content Recognition for UGC.pptx; Audible Magic_Content recognition technoloogy.pdf

For the Attention of Vice-President Andrus Ansip and Commissioner Roberto Viola

Dear Vice-President, I have noticed in the last week two articles that have been published online which call into question the Audible Magic pricing you have correctly quoted in a meeting with the JURI Committee of the European Parliament: http://copybuzz.com/analysis/things-money-cant-buy/ and https://edri.org/proposed-copyright- directive-commissioner-confirms-it-is-illegal/

I would like to confirm that the prices that you are reported to have quoted are actual prices that we have agreed in contracts with SMEs, both in the EU and elsewhere, where their initial requirement was to check up to 5,000 files per month. We are continuing to provide these examples in presentations we are making to MEPs and to the IP Attachés of the member states’ Permanent Representation to the EU (see slides 9 and 10 of the attached slide deck).

Both articles also make reference to pricing which appears on Audible Magic’s website. While it is common to find that actual prices agreed with customers of any business, particularly if the customers are SMEs, are discounted from published price lists, the price list on our website is actually compatible with the prices we have referenced in our presentations, and that you have reportedly quoted. For total transparency, I should point out that we updated the price list after becoming aware of the first of the articles referenced above, which drew our attention to the fact that a five year old, and much out of date, price list was still on our website. We updated it to accurately reflect our current pricing.

I have also attached a brief two-page information document on content recognition technology which we are in the course of distributing to MEPs, at the end of which is a short, two minute information video on content recognition technologies.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you or any of your staff require any further information.

Kind regards,

Audible Magic LLC

Studio 504, The Metal Box Factory 30 Great Guildford Street London SE1 0HS Personal Data United Kingdom

T : M: email: @audiblemagic.com

55 Skype: www.audiblemagic.com

56 www.audiblemagic.com Tel: Email: United Kingdom London 0HS SE1 30 Great Guildford Street Suite 504, The Metal Factory Box For further information, please contact: Content Recognition Technology: Balancing the Needs of Online Platforms, Creatorsand Users , , Audible Magic Corporation Magic Corporation Audible @audiblemagic.com Ref. Ares(2017)3257224-29/06/2017 Personal Data 57 Audible Magic Overview

Company • Founded in 1999 Background • Offices in Los Gatos, Berkeley, and London

58 ‘Effective’: A Range of Content Identification Technologies

ID Tech Description Effectiveness Cost/file Comment Not a good filter Matches words contained File Name <5% <0.001€ High false negative and in file name false positive rates Not a good filter File Hash Matches file bits exactly <10% <0.0001€ unless paired with other ID technology Good for identifying Matches embedded mark Watermark <10% <0.01-.05€ premium content. Little either visual or audible content is watermarked Standard today for Fingerprint Matches perceptual <0.005 - production. Range of (image, characteristics compared to Up to 99+% .05€ accuracy among audio, video) original technologies Not practical for primary Human Manual review <50% > 1€ identification process Review Good for counter-notice

Effectiveness – How much of the targeted content is matched?

59 Content Identification Fingerprinting

1. Building a Reference Database

Inherent Reference Database Characteristics of Registrations

A1,B3,C4 A1,B3,C4 Fred

Reference A2,B4,C8 Sally Database A6,B7,C4 John Fred S.

2. Matching Unknowns to the References

A2,B4,C8 Match Reference Sally Database

60 Enabling Online Platforms to Identify Copyright Content

Online Platform Uploader

Ingest Post/Publish

• Music, Film and TV content owners register their Content works into AM databases Registration • Online platforms integrate AM services to review at Copyright time of ingest (less than a day) Compliance Studios • No personal data is captured, transmitted or processed Reference Music Labels/ Database • AM notifies online platform of matches and business Publishers rule • Online platform allows, monetizes or blocks posting of videos • Pricing is based upon number of files analyzed per month. Affordable for small online platforms. 61 Trusted 3rd Party Mediating Between Content and Online Platforms

62 AM Customers Voluntarily Comply

•Highest standards demanded by copyright owners

•Good digital citizens

•Maintain good relations with copyright owners

•Pre-emption v takedown: • More efficient & less costly • Licensing opportunity • Better user experience 63 SME Case Studies

• Swedish start-up • Vietnamese start-up

64 Tried & Tested Solution for 10 Years

• Effective and Accurate

• 99.9% match rate (< 0.1% false negatives).

• Less than 0.0001% false positives.

• Affordable and Scalable: from €500 or less per month.

• Review processes in place for copyright exceptions. 65 ACR Creates a Level Playing Field

• Enables clear distinction between genuine User- Generated Content and unauthorised commercial music/film/TV uploads

66 A Simplified Licensing Solution: Standard Licensing and Comprehensive Tools

Compliance and Licensing Platform

Recognise Claim License Track Report Collect Distribute

Online Online Online Online Online Online Platform Platform Platform Platform Platform Platform

67 Issues that have been raised

• Effectiveness

• Copyright Exceptions

• Fundamental Rights

• General Obligation to Monitor?

• Cost/ the effect on growth

• Applicability of content recognition technology to diverse types of copyright works.

68 APPENDIX

69 Ability to Implement a Take Down Stay Down Service

Online Platform

Ingest Post/Publish

Uploader

• Implemented since 2008: e.g. Myspace and Dailymotion

70 The Future of Content Identification

• Technology is not static • Manipulations of content • Mashups and mixes • Musical compositions

• Evolution from compliance tool to enabling licensing and monetization

• Important that legislation remains flexible to deal with evolution of (i) problems and (ii) solutions

71 Ref. Ares(2017)3257224 - 29/06/2017

What is Content Recognition Technology? Content recognition using digital audio and video fingerprinting technologies was developed in the 1990’s. It measures characteristics of online sound or moving images to create a unique digital fingerprint of sound or audio-visual recordings. Audible Magic – one of many content recognition technology companies operating in Europe – has been providing content recognition services for more than 17 years. It s technology has been used by internet platforms for the last decade, including by the big gest in the world: SoundCloud, Dailymotion, Facebook, Vimeo, Instagram, Twitch, Tumblr, YouTube (no longer an Audible Magic customer) and by smaller, less well-known platforms such as Spinnup, Jemando and many others. o No data privacy issues: no personal data is seen, captured or processed. It is impossible for Audible Magic to identify who uploaded a file or even from which country it was uploaded. o No negative effect on growth: Some of our customers have grown from medium sized enterprises when they first started to use content recognition technology to be global internet giants. o Scalable, affordable and accurate: the service and costs scale with volume, with even the smallest platforms able to process their content cost effectively. False negative rates of less than 0.1% and false positive rates of less than 0.00001%.

How is our Film and TV Content Recognition Service Used by Online Platforms? o Only audio and audio-visual files detected - all other uploaded files bypass the detection system. o The process is very similar to the way every computer nowadays checks new files to ensure they do not contain harmful viruses. A fingerprint taken from an uploaded audio/video file is compared against all the fingerprints in our reference database. All matches are communicated to the internet platform together with metadata describing the recognised content and business rules (e.g. ‘License’ or ‘Block’) specified by the copyright owner.

• Only metal is detected • Only ferrous metal is detected • Other materials pass through • Other objects, even those of • No personal information is collected same type are not detected

The system only recognises content which has been affirmatively registered by the copyright owners and is totally blind to everything else. UGC files are like objects run past a magnet, or airline passengers going through metal detectors in pre-boarding checks - only metallic objects with specific characteristics are detected. Everything else passes straight through the system without being analysed or categorised.

72 Content recognition technology is used in many ways today, including:

o Administering broadcast and public performance: Content recognition technologies from companies such as Audible Magic, Soundmouse and BMAT have been in use for many years throughout the world to identify music that is broadcast on radio and television, or played in public venues. The technology is essential for the accurate logging of works used to properly compensate the creators.

o Online Content Management Systems : For over ten years many of the world’s most popular internet platforms have used content recognition technology to manage music, film and TV copyrights.

o Fu n: “What ’s that song?!” Shazam, SoundHound o Accessibility : Free apps for mobile devices developed for the Swedish Film Institute use Audible Magic content recognition technology to provide synchronized Audio Description and spoken subtitles for films for vision- or reading-impaired viewers.

är sann m k Swedish Culture and Democracy Minister, Alice Bah Kuhnke, at launch of the Swedish Film Institute’s Accessibility platform.

o Audible Magic UGC Licensing Support Services – Audible Magic has made a considerable investment in adding Licensing Support Ser vices to the suite of ser vices it provides to online platforms. This removes barriers to entry for even the smallest sites to get licenses and enables them to provide the same levels of sophistication in content management, tracking and reporting as the internet giants.

Who is Audible Magic? Audible Magic is a technology company founded in 1999. It pioneered digital audio fingerprinting for content recognition and has remained at the cutting edge of the development of content recognition technologies ever since. It is a leading provider of automated content recognition services to online platforms and networks. The s e r v i c e s identify copyrighted music and television/film in files uploaded by users. Audible Magic is a 3rd party - independent from both the online platforms and copyright owners.

For more information contact: Watch our

short video: Audible Magic LLC Click here Europe, Middle East & Africa

Studio 504, The Metal Box Factory 30 Great Guildford Street London SE1 0HS United Kingdom @audiblemagic.com

73 Ref. Ares(2018)1381117- 13/03/2018

Doc. 8

Google Inc. Main 202.346.1100 25 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Fax 202.346.1101 9th Floor www.google.com Washington, DC 20001

October 16, 2015

The Honorable Daniel H. Marti United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget 725 17th Street, NW Washington, DC 20503

Re: Development of the Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement FR Doc. 2015-21289 (August 21, 2015)

Dear Enforcement Coordinator Marti:

Google Inc. (“Google”) appreciates the opportunity to submit comments in connection with the Office of Management and Budget (the “Office”) Request: Development of the Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement, 80 Fed. Reg. 169. We share the Office’s interest in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. government’s intellectual property enforcement efforts. We are therefore pleased to describe some of the voluntary measures Google has taken to combat piracy and counterfeiting, and propose strategies to ensure that the U.S. continues to incentivize creativity, protect rightsholders, and grow the creative economy.

The Current State of the Creative Economy

The Internet is one of the greatest success stories in the U.S. economy, responsible in past years for 15% of U.S. GDP growth.1 More than $8 trillion in commerce is now conducted online each year.2 The growth of the Internet and its user platforms has ushered in an explosion of creativity and free expression. More music, video, software, and all kinds of media are being created by more people than ever before.3 The new opportunities and low barriers to entry made possible by digital tools and online distribution are transforming every kind of creative endeavor, both amateur and professional.

U.S. law has supported the Internet’s growth by adopting a balanced approach to intellectual property rights, employing a flexible legal framework that protects rightsholders while also promoting innovation. This has allowed digital platforms like Google Play, Spotify, Deezer, YouTube, iTunes, Netflix, Amazon,

1 McKinsey Global Institute, Internet matters: The Net’s sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity (May 2011), available at http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/internet_matters. 2 Id. 3 Computer & Communications Industry Association, the sky is rising (Oct. 2014), available at https://www.ccianet.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Sky-Is-Rising-2014.pdf.

1 Google Inc. Main 202.346.1100 25 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Fax 202.346.1101 9th Floor www.google.com Washington, DC 20001

Hulu, and hundreds of others to make content legally available online to consumers throughout the world. The presence of legal sources of desirable content online is the single greatest force against piracy; where consumers have legal options to get the content they want, they overwhelmingly choose the legal options over pirated sources. The success of Spotify in Sweden led to a significant reduction in file sharing of music on The Pirate Bay and other websites.4 Online platforms made possible by the balanced approach to IP protection are driving billions of dollars of revenue to the entertainment industries that might otherwise be lost to piracy.

A key part of the U.S.’s balanced approach to intellectual property are the DMCA safe harbors, which established a set of responsibilities to be shared between copyright owners and service providers. At the heart of the safe harbor framework is a notice-and-takedown process created by Congress. The DMCA safe harbors have proven to be remarkably successful at their underlying aim – to encourage investment in new technologies by reducing the uncertainties created by copyright law, while also giving copyright owners effective tools to address infringement online.

In addition to the DMCA safe harbors, fair use – which is enshrined in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act – also plays an important role in allowing the Internet to flourish and drive U.S. economic growth and job creation. A balanced approach to enforcement must respect copyright’s flexible limitations and exceptions, without which the online platforms, search engines, and social media networks that are fueling new creativity and revenue streams for all parts of the creative ecosystem today would not exist. Striking this healthy balance has led to phenomenal results in terms of economic growth in the U.S. Industries relying upon fair use have more than $4.5 trillion in annual revenue and employ 17 million people.5

Google’s Efforts to Fight Piracy

Google is a leader in addressing copyright infringement online. Copyright owners have used the DMCA provisions to request that Google remove from its search index more than 400 million webpages thus far in 2015. We process more takedown notices, and faster, than any other search engine. We receive notices for a tiny fraction of everything we host and index, which nonetheless amounts to millions of copyright removal requests per week that are processed, on average, in under six hours. In addition, Google uses the information it receives through the notice-and-takedown process to demote sites for which we have received a high number of removal notices. Our search algorithm factors in the number of copyright removal notices received for a given site when ranking search results, helping users find

4 Copia, The Carrot or the Stick? (Oct. 8. 2015), available at https://copia.is/library/the-carrot-or-the-stick/. 5 Computer & Communications Industry Association, Fair Use in the U.S. Economy (2011), available at http://cdn.ccianet.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CCIA-FairUseintheUSEconomy-2011.pdf.

2 Google Inc. Main 202.346.1100 25 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Fax 202.346.1101 9th Floor www.google.com Washington, DC 20001

legitimate sources of content more easily. The changes made to our algorithm have been highly effective in demoting sites receiving a high number of takedown notices.6

We’ve also been testing new ads formats and panels on search result pages for queries related to music and movies to help people find legitimate sources of media. For the relatively small number of queries for music and movies that include terms like “download,” “free,” “watch,” or “mp3,” we’ve worked with partners to point people to quick and compelling authorized sources.7 And last year, we also began removing more terms from autocomplete predictions based on DMCA removal notices.

Google has also worked with this Office on best practices aimed at raising antipiracy standards across the entire online advertising industry. We were among the first companies to certify compliance in the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Quality Assurance Certification program, through which participating advertising companies take steps to enhance buyer control over the placement and context of advertising and build brand safety. This program helps ensure that advertisers and their agents are able to control where their ads appear across the web.

We also worked with the Office and other leading ad networks to develop groundbreaking “Best Practices and Guidelines for Ad Networks to Address Piracy and Counterfeiting.”8 Under these voluntary best practices, ad networks maintain and post policies prohibiting websites that are principally dedicated to engaging in piracy or counterfeiting from participating in the ad network’s advertising programs. By working across the industry, these “follow the money” best practices target the financial incentives for pirate sites by cutting off the flow of ad revenue to operators of sites engaged in piracy or counterfeiting while continuing to promote digital innovation. Thanks in large part to the leadership of this Office, there is a major opportunity to now expand the online advertising sector’s commitment to combating piracy and counterfeiting by seeking additional signatories from the hundreds of remaining ad networks. In light of the growth of this dynamic sector, there would be real benefit in engaging with ad networks to encourage broader participation in these voluntary commitments.

In 2014 and 2015, we also participated in the Department of Commerce’s long-running Internet Policy Task Force multistakeholder process, convened by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), aimed at improving the operation of the DMCA notice-and-takedown system. As proposed in its “Green Paper on Copyright

6 searchmetrics SEO Blog, Google Pirate Update Analysis and Loser List (Oct. 26, 2014), available at http://blog.searchmetrics.com/us/2014/10/26/google-pirate-update-analysis-and-loser-list/. 7 Google Public Policy Blog, Continued progress on fighting piracy (Oct. 17, 2014), available at http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/10/continued-progress-on-fighting-piracy.html. 8 Google Public Policy Blog, Ad Networks Agree on Industry Best Practices to Combat Piracy and Counterfeiting (July 15, 2013), available at http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/07/ad-networks-agree-on-industry- best.html.

3 Google Inc. Main 202.346.1100 25 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Fax 202.346.1101 9th Floor www.google.com Washington, DC 20001

Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy,” the Internet Policy Task Force multistakeholder meetings, calls, and working groups focused participants on the development of voluntary measures to make the system more efficient and effective, resulting in the published “DMCA Notice-and-Takedown Processes: List of Good, Bad and Situational Practices,” which identifies a number of practices to improve the efficiency of the handling and processing of DMCA notices by both senders and recipients.9

Finally, this year, as your Office is aware, Google is participating in the ongoing discussions and development of best practices arising out of the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG) Antipiracy Working Group, which is also focused on bringing stakeholders together – including advertisers, rightsholders, and platforms – to develop additional best practices and tools to prevent the placement of online ads on websites dedicated to piracy or the sale of counterfeit goods.

For video content, no other online platform has done more to fight piracy or paid more royalties to the content industry than YouTube. When a video is uploaded, it is compared to our database of millions of fingerprints corresponding to copyrighted works by Google’s Content ID system. Using this service, which YouTube has invested more than $60 million to develop, copyright owners can identify user- uploaded videos that include their content, and choose in advance what they want to happen when those videos are found. They can opt to block the video from appearing, choose instead to monetize the video with advertising, or simply leave the video on the site for its promotional value. Content ID gives copyright owners full control in protecting and monetizing their intellectual property rights. The choice of most copyright owners has been to allow the video to be posted and monetized with advertising. Content ID has generated more than $1 billion in revenue for the content industry. There are currently more than 4,000 partners on YouTube, including all the major movie studios and record labels.10

For more information, please see the attached report “How Google Fights Piracy.”

9 United States Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. Commerce Department Announces Digital Millennium Copyright Act Multistakeholder Forum Results (April 7, 2015), available at http://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/us- commerce-department-announces-digital-millennium-copyright-act. 10 See Variety, Ranking the Top 12 Digital Stars: Variety’s #Famechangers (July 22, 2015), available at http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/variety-famechangers-youtubers-pewdiepie-1201545222/; Mashable, Being a YouTuber Is Now a Real Business (July 1, 2014), available at http://mashable.com/2014/07/01/vidcon-youtube- business/#S6IDGQEhXsqW; BloombergBusiness, Hollywood’s Big-Money YouTube Hit Factory (Aug. 28, 2014), available at http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-08-28/youtube-hollywoods-hit-factory-for-teen- entertainment; Washington Post, YouTube sensation Lindsey Stirling on how the Internet can shape the music industry (May 29, 2014), available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/05/29/youtube- sensation-lindsey-stirling-on-how-the-internet-can-shape-the-music-industry/.

4 Google Inc. Main 202.346.1100 25 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Fax 202.346.1101 9th Floor www.google.com Washington, DC 20001

Google’s Efforts to Fight Counterfeiting

Google has zero tolerance for counterfeit in search ads. We’ve dedicated considerable human and engineering resources across the company to develop and implement measures to root out counterfeit from AdWords, our main advertising platform. The reactive component of our anti-counterfeit measures involves a robust counterfeit complaint and removal process. We have a simple and accessible complaint form for reporting ads that may promote counterfeit goods. This form can be submitted by consumers, as well as trademark owners. In response to a valid complaint, Google will take action within 24 hours. In most instances, we terminate the account and disable the domain so the advertiser and site are banned from AdWords.

The proactive component of our anti-counterfeit measures involves sophisticated automated systems our engineering teams have developed. They’re based on advanced risk models that rely on thousands of data signals to detect fraudulent activity by advertisers, including counterfeiting. Our automated systems are highly effective. Over 99% of the AdWords accounts terminated on counterfeit grounds are detected by these systems. In addition, due to continuous enhancements to these systems, counterfeiters are increasingly unable to circumvent our detection methods. We’re now seeing a decrease in counterfeiters infiltrating AdWords; for instance, we shut down approximately 7,000 accounts on counterfeit grounds in 2014, down from 14,000 in 2013.

Brandowners can also submit court orders obtained against unlawful sites to Google. Google offers an online form for submission of court orders adjudicating content to be unlawful. The court orders simply need to identify webpages that contain illegal content and Google will remove the pages voluntarily from our search results.11

For more information regarding Google’s efforts to fight counterfeiting, please see the attached report “How Google Fights the Advertisement of Counterfeited Goods.”

Recommendations for Improving IP Enforcement

We recommend that the U.S. promote balanced legal frameworks at home and abroad, which protect rightsholders while encouraging investment in new technologies and giving individuals the freedom to innovate. Unbalanced enforcement policies fail to serve the long-term interests of rightsholders (who derive an increasing percent of their revenue from digital distribution and benefit when new online distribution methods are developed and scaled), Internet platforms (who create new ways to deliver content to users around the world), and users (who develop creative new ways to interact with content and creators) and could have the effect of damaging the U.S.’s economic growth by stifling online creativity

11 Google Help Center, Legal Removal Requests, available at https://support.google.com/legal/answer/3110420?product=websearch&rd=2.

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and expression. Below are proposed strategies to further strengthen balanced intellectual property enforcement and grow the creative economy:

● Encourage Growth of Access to Legitimate Digital Content: Piracy thrives when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply. Online services like Google Play, Spotify, Netflix, and iTunes have demonstrated that the most effective way to combat piracy on the web is to offer attractive legal alternatives to consumers. Supply-based initiatives, focused on making lawfully available to consumers the content that they want, are a key part of voluntary industry-led efforts to fight online piracy. We encourage the Office to continue identifying barriers to licensing content to help promote legitimate alternatives.

● Seek Feedback from Rightsholders on Obstacles to Targeting Foreign-Based “Rogue” Sites at the Source: Because actions by intermediaries are never as good as effective judicial systems to enforce copyright and trademark rights, the Office may also consider seeking feedback from rightsholders to better understand what obstacles they encounter that prevent them from bringing civil suits against “rogue” actors in foreign courts, and whether the Office can recommend improvements to streamline enforcement tools to attack bad faith actors dedicated to piracy and counterfeiting at their source.

● Evaluate Proposals for Streamlining MLA Process: To better enable the targeted and effective coordination of law enforcement where “rogue” websites dedicated to piracy or counterfeiting are based abroad, the Office may also consider reviewing potential reforms to the Mutual Legal Assistance (“MLA”) process to ensure appropriate cooperation between U.S. and foreign law enforcement to prosecute bad actors at their source.

● Modernize the U.S. Copyright Office: Google is encouraged by the emerging public focus on how the U.S. Copyright Office can be modernized to improve basic operational and technical functions including registration and ownership transparency. The Internet now offers unprecedented abilities to search, create, and access information about creative works. Transitioning the U.S. Copyright Office’s registration and recordation systems to online, user- friendly services, with complete, accurate and accessible registration information (including with standardized identification codes) would yield efficiencies in the protection, licensing, royalty payouts, and legitimate uses and enjoyment of these works by the public.

● Promote a Balanced Approach to IP Abroad: The U.S. experience proves that a fully balanced IP framework, including key principles such as safe harbors for online platforms and fair use, serves as an engine of innovation and creativity for rightsholders, Internet services, and other stakeholders. As a result, the U.S. should be careful to ensure that when U.S. officials are promoting IP frameworks around the world they include the full extent of copyright and trademark limitations and exceptions within those frameworks. Some countries have recently sought to narrow or eliminate these exceptions – with worrisome results not just for U.S. companies but also for the principle of access to information. For example, in Spain, we discontinued offering Google News after a new law required all Spanish publications to charge news services for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications. The global

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competitiveness of U.S. companies depends upon the adoption of clear limitations and exceptions by other countries, as well as the adoption of appropriate protections from intermediary liability.

● Protect Against Predatory Pricing During gTLD Sunrise Periods: Prior to the public launch of new gTLDs, trademark owners are given an opportunity to register their trademarks as a second-level domain. This window of time is referred to as the “Sunrise Period.” Many trademark owners will take advantage of the Sunrise Period to prevent infringers from registering a domain for their trademark. Most registries charge a reasonable fee or no additional fee for this service. Some registries are exploiting the Sunrise Period by charging exorbitant fees to brandowners, including 10 to 50 times standard pricing. Recent examples include the .sucks gTLD, which is charging brandowners $2,499 annually to register their trademarks. While it is important for users to be able to exercise their free speech rights, including through gTLDs, charging brandowners exorbitant fees for largely defensive registrations does little to protect consumers. Engagement by this Office to create reasonable limits on Sunrise Period fees would be beneficial to legitimate brandowners.

● Assess Opportunities to Pursue A Uniform Customs Recordation Process Across Borders: A key part of any anti-counterfeit enforcement program is enlisting the assistance of customs to seize counterfeits at the border. There are opportunities to makes this process vastly more efficient for brandowners and enhance its effectiveness. It would be extremely beneficial to have a single portal where brandowners can record their trademarks in a uniform manner. This information would then be automatically transmitted to the relevant customs offices. There are other models to consider, including ones that have garnered support from the International Trademark Association (INTA) to implement in the U.S., but could be considered for implementation internationally. For instance, registration of a trademark at a trademark office would automatically trigger its recordation with the corresponding customs office. Similarly, to increase information-sharing and efficiency, any renewals of the registration could be automatically updated at the customs office.

● Oppose Whole-Site Removal: It has been suggested that Internet platforms should remove entire sites from search results, rather than relying on copyright owners to identify specific infringing pages for removal. Unfortunately, whole-site removal is ineffective and can easily result in censorship of lawful material. Blogging sites contain millions of pages from hundreds of thousands of users as do social networking sites, e-commerce sites, and cloud computing services. All can inadvertently contain material that is infringing. It is rare indeed for a site to consist wholly of infringing material. This approach was widely rejected by the public and Congress in 2012 when proposed as part of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The DMCA provides copyright owners with an effective and efficient framework for removing any infringing page on a site. Removing or blocking an entire site could not only impinge on free speech by entirely removing lawful pages that appear on the same site as pages containing infringing content, but it would also be counterproductive. Whole site removal would simply drive piracy to new domains, legitimate sites, and social networks. For such “rogue” websites dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting sites, a widespread number of IP experts, policymakers and industry analysts believe that a “follow the money” approach, which chokes off revenue is most

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effective. Since such sites are dedicated to making money, taking away sources of money is the most effective approach. Finally, whole-site removal sends the wrong message to other countries by favoring over-inclusive private censorship over the rule of law. If the U.S. embraces such an overbroad approach to address domestic law violations (e.g., copyright), it will embolden other countries to seek similar whole-site removal remedies for violations of their laws (e.g., insults to the king, dissident political speech). This would jeopardize free speech principles, emerging services, and the free flow of information online globally and in contexts far removed from copyright.

* * *

Google appreciates the opportunity to share its perspective and experience, and we look forward to continued engagement with the Office on these topics.

8 ATTACHMENT A HOW

GOOGLE

FIGHTS

PIRACY Contents

Introduction 2

Better Legitimate Alternatives to Piracy 4

YouTube 9

Google Web Search 13

Advertising 22

1 Introduction

In the year since this report was first issued in 2013, we’ve seen countless examples of creators and major rightsholders around the world benefiting from the web and online platforms. Some highlights from the past year have been:

Our Content ID system on YouTube, which identifies user-uploaded videos for rightsholders, won a Primetime Emmy in 2013 and has generated over a billion dollars for the content industry. Content ID now accounts for more than a third of YouTube’s monetizable views. The majority of partners using Content ID choose to monetize their claims and many have seen significant increases in their revenue as a result.

Fans from around the world come to YouTube to celebrate their favorite content. Whether it was Pharrell’s “Happy” or “Let It Go” from Disney’s movie Frozen, fan communities from around the world gave studios and record labels alike an incredible amount of promotion, resulting in longer stays at the box office and at the top of the charts.

Artist and musician Lindsey Stirling told the story of her success on YouTube to the Washington Post, before her show at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to celebrate YouTube’s 9th birthday.1 “YouTube really allows for artists to be leader of their careers,” she said in her interview. “I started to put all my energy into learning to market yourself on YouTube [...] It was a very empowering feeling, because for the first time I could do what I wanted. And I could do it my own way.”

At the same time, Google has been participating in a number of workshops and conversations with policymakers and government agencies around the world aimed at fighting piracy online. In March of 2014, Google testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the DMCA notice- and-takedown process. In our testimony, we note our own experiences with the notice-and- takedown process, and highlight its importance in a developing media landscape where online platforms are creating more and more opportunities for creators every year.2

Now more than ever it’s obvious that the Internet is a boon to creativity. More music, more video, more text, and more software is being created by more people in more places than ever before.3 Every kind of creative endeavor, both amateur and professional, is being transformed by the new opportunities and lower costs made possible by digital tools and online distribution.

Nevertheless, online piracy still remains a challenge, and Google takes that challenge seriously. We develop and deploy anti-piracy solutions with the support of hundreds of Google employees. This regular report details those efforts, as well as how Google products and services create opportunity for creators around the world.

Google’s Anti-Piracy Principles

Create More and Better Legitimate Alternatives. The best way to battle piracy is with better, more convenient, legitimate alternatives to piracy. By developing products with beautiful user experiences, we help drive revenue for creative industries.

Follow the Money. 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. Google is a leader in rooting out and ejecting rogue sites from our advertising and payment services, and in raising standards across the industry. 1 Washington Post, “YouTube sensation Lindsey Stirling on how the Internet can shape the music industry,” May 2014 2 Google, “Testimony of Katherine Oyama, Sr. Copyright Policy Counsel, Google Inc.,” March 2014 3 Techdirt, “The Sky is Rising,” January 2012 2 Be Efficient, Effective, and Scalable. Google strives to implement anti-piracy solutions that work. For example, beginning in 2010, Google has made substantial investments in streamlining the copyright removal process for search results. As a result, these improved procedures allow us to process copyright removal requests for search results at the rate of millions per week with an average turnaround time of less than 6 hours.

Guard Against Abuse. Unfortunately, fabricated copyright infringement allegations can be used as a pretext for censorship and to hinder competition. Google is committed to ensuring that, even as we battle piracy online, we detect and reject bogus infringement allegations.

Provide Transparency. We disclose the number of requests we receive from copyright owners and governments to remove information from our services.4 We hope these steps toward greater transparency will inform ongoing discussions about content regulation online.

These principles guide the actions of Google employees, as well as our investment of tens of millions of dollars in new tools and systems to improve and expand our anti-piracy efforts. Some of the highlights, discussed in more detail in this report, include:

YOUTUBE More than a million partner channels from more than 30 countries are earning money from their YouTube videos. More than 5,000 rightsholder partners use YouTube’s content identification tool, Content ID, to manage their copyrights appearing within user-generated content on the site. These partners include network broadcasters, movie studios, songwriters, and record labels, and they are collectively making hundreds of millions of dollars a year by using YouTube’s Content ID tools to monetize these videos.

GOOGLE PLAY A digital storefront where people can buy millions of songs and books, thousands of movies and TV shows, and much more content. And Play offers a subscription service which gives people another way to access millions of songs across their devices for a monthly fee. For a monthly fee they can listen to millions of songs across their devices.

GOOGLE SEARCH We process more takedown notices, and faster, than any other search engine. We receive notices for a tiny fraction of everything we host and index, which nonetheless amounts to millions of copyright removal requests per week that are processed, on average, in less than 6 hours.

ADS Our policies prohibit infringing sites from using our advertising services. Since 2012, we have ejected more than 73,000 sites from our AdSense program, the vast majority of those caught by our own proactive screens.

4 Google, “Transparency Report: Removal Requests,” January 2013 3 Better Legitimate Alternatives to Piracy

Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply. As services ranging from Netflix to Spotify to iTunes have demonstrated, the best way to combat piracy is with better and more convenient legitimate services. The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.

The music industry has demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach by licensing a variety of music services including free, advertising-supported streaming services (like Spotify and Pandora), download stores (like iTunes), and on-demand subscription products (like Google Play Music All Access). A survey released by the Swedish music industry showed that since 2009 the number of people who download music illegally in Sweden has decreased by more than 25 percent, largely as a result of greater availability of improved legal services such as Spotify.5 Similar trends were seen in a 2013 survey from NPD Group.6 And a recent study conducted by Spotify found that overall piracy rates in the Netherlands has declined dramatically thanks to the popularity of legitimate digital music services.7 And at the 2014 Bigsound conference in Brisbane, Spotify shared data showing that torrent activity in Australia fell by more than 20% following their entry into that market.8

Signs have been positive that the creative industries are growing around the world, thanks in large part to digitization. IFPI reported that the recording industry grew its digital revenue by 4.3% in 2013, to $5.9 billion.9 Nielsen reported that, in 2013, the number of music streams in the U.S. alone grew by a whopping 32%.10 A 2013 study by Booz & Co. in Europe found that digital media was driving growth in the European creative sector.11

Google has been at the forefront of creating new, authorized ways for consumers to obtain digital content. We build platforms where our users can legitimately purchase, consume, and discover entertainment and culture. We also pioneer innovative new approaches to monetizing online media.

5 Mediavision, “Music Sweden File Sharing & Downloading,” 2011 6 NPD Group, “Music Filesharing declined Significantly in 2012,” Feburary 2012 7 Spotify, “New Spotify study sees encouraging downwards trend in music piracy in the Netherlands,” July 2013 8 Billboard, “Streaming Services Make Inroads Into Piracy Down Under, Spotify’s Will Page Tells Bigsound” September 2014 9 IFPI, “IFPI Digital Music Report: 2014,” March 2014 10 Nielsen, ”U.S. Music Industry Year-End Review: 2013,” January 2014 11 Booz & Co., “The Digital Future of Creative Europe: The Economic Impact of Digitization and the Internet on the Creative Sector in Europe,” March 2013 4 YouTube Partners

YouTube’s community includes not only a billion individual users every month, but also more than a million partner channels from over thirty countries that earn money from their YouTube videos—from independent musicians and creators to some of the world’s biggest record labels, movie studios, and news organizations. YouTube has developed a series of tools and programs to help our content partners thrive, including partnerships with every major record label, as well as hundreds of collecting societies, independent labels, and music publishers to license recorded music on the site. As a result of partnerships like these, YouTube generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year for the content industry.

From musicians to athletes, teachers to comedians, more than a million video creators are now part of the Partner Program established by YouTube in 2007. Many thousands of them are earning six-figure incomes from their YouTube channels. To further invest in this creative community, we have opened facilities like the new collaborative spaces in LA, London, Tokyo, and soon in New York as places for partners to shoot, edit and create their content for free. These facilities support the creative industry in developing and monetizing their work through partner channels on YouTube.

Photos of the YouTube Space in Los Angeles. For more information, visit youtube.com/yt/space.

Rentals are another option for content partners. Thanks to our partnerships with content creators, YouTube offers tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes to rent at standard industry pricing.

5 YOUTUBE CREATOR CASE STUDIES

One of the most inspiring things about YouTube is the way people around the world use it to express their passion and creativity—and to turn it into a career. Thousands of channels are now generating six-figure revenue through the YouTube Partner Program, and there are more than one million channels earning revenue. Below are just a few recent examples of creators succeeding on YouTube:

Michelle Phan Michelle Phan was one of the earliest YouTube adopters to share beauty tutorials. Over the past seven years, she has uploaded more than 300 videos that have positioned her as a how-to influencer, with more than 6 million subscribers and almost 1 billion video views.

VICE VICE is known for its bold explorations of “uncomfortable truths” and “going to places they don’t belong,” partly due to the controversial videos on its YouTube channel. Today they have millions of subscribers.

Epic Rap Battles Great content is at the heart of any successful YouTube channel strategy and Epic Rap Battles, with its unique blend of history, comedy and music content, nails it. The channel has garnered more than 1 billion lifetime views and 10 million total subscribers. Epic Rap Battles rakes in an average of 37 million views per rap battle video.

6 Thanks to the popularity of music videos and YouTube’s agreements with record labels and music publishers to feature them, YouTube has become an important destination for music. So much so that, as of February 2013, Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 chart now incorporates YouTube views when ranking a song’s popularity. The 2013 Digital Music Report from IFPI12, an international association representing the recording industry, concluded that 90% of Internet users are aware of YouTube, and that the service attracts a large global audience. And YouTube has sent more than a billion dollars to the music industry in the last few years.

Each time a music fan chooses YouTube over an unauthorized source for music, it’s a victory against piracy—unlike previous generations of music fans who were raised on unauthorized sources for music, today’s young fans have YouTube as a legal, compelling way to experience music online. And because of our licensing agreements with our partners in the music industry, rightsholders are compensated when fans visit YouTube to experience music videos.

Google Play

There are more than a billion active Android users around the world, presenting a tremendous opportunity to creative industries. Google Play is a service that helps rightsholders and creators sell their applications or content directly to Google users, particularly on Android. It’s a digital store where people can find, purchase and enjoy entertainment for their devices—from computers to tablets to smartphones. We’ve partnered with all of the major record labels, publishers, and movie studios to offer millions of songs and books, thousands of movies and TV shows, and hundreds of magazines that can be enjoyed across devices. Google Play has expanded rapidly into new countries in the last year: Play Music is available in 45 countries, Play Movies in more than 93 countries, and Play Books in 57 countries.

MUSIC Google Play offers users a store where they can purchase new music, a music locker to store existing collections of songs, and a subscription service to access millions of songs from the Google Play collection. Today there are millions of songs available for purchase from Google Play. Google also has “scan-and-match” licenses that enable users to access their personal music collections from any connected device, without the time-consuming process of uploading those files. Our music subscription service lets users listen to millions of songs on-demand for a monthly fee.

These products are driving revenue for the music industry. And thanks to our partnerships with rightsholders around the world, Google Play Music is available to a global audience

12 IFPI, “IFPI Digital Music Report 2013,” 2013 7 MOVIES AND TV SHOWS

Google Play has partnered with all of the major film studios in the U.S. and many local studios overseas to offer thousands of movies and TV shows for rental or purchase, many before Netflix and home release. We also offer innovative features that take advantage of a digital format to drive user engagement, such as Info Cards that appear when a movie or TV show is paused and give more information about the actors and music in a scene.

BOOKS AND MAGAZINES Google Play is home to the world’s largest selection of eBooks – with more than 5 million titles available. More than 48,000 publishers have joined the Partner Program to promote their books online, including nearly every major U.S. publisher. We have also partnered with major publishers to make more than 2,000 news sources available across newspapers, magazines, blogs and news sites, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, NPR, and many more, creating a new market for magazines and newspapers. Users are able to access their books, magazines, and newspapers on any of their devices.

APPS AND GAMES Google Play is an engine of economic opportunity for application developers because it gives them a free platform to build on and reach millions of users. More than a million apps and games are available for sale or for free on Google Play, and they’ve been downloaded over 50 billion times.

Several of the most popular apps are delivering licensed music, movies, and TV shows to users.

Netflix, which launched on Android in 2011, allows subscribers to stream TV and movies.

Pandora creates personalized music stations and streams songs directly to users.

Spotify is a subscription music services that offers both free, ad-supported access, as well as subscription access, to a catalog of licensed music.

We also launched Google Play Games, an app that makes it easy to discover new games, track achievements and scores, and play games with friends around the world. Google Play is an opportunity for game developers to showcase their creativity and sell their apps directly to gamers. Google Play Games is the fastest growing mobile game network of all time. Three out of every four Android users play games.

8 YouTube

More than one billion unique users visit YouTube each month and together watch more than six billion hours of video. And more than 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, spanning every conceivable topic from politics to comedy, from daredevil sports to religion. YouTube has been a transformational force in the world of creative expression, a global video platform at a scale never imagined.

YouTube’s popularity translates into creator success. For example, over the past few years we’ve paid out over a billion dollars to the music industry alone, and thousands of partner channels are now earning more than a hundred thousand dollars a year. As we explain below, much of this growth is due to the investments we’ve made in technologies that help rightsholders and creators find and monetize their content on the platform.

Content ID: A Win-Win Solution

Beginning in 2007, YouTube developed and launched the most advanced content identification system in the world, called Content ID. With this system, rightsholders are able to identify user-uploaded videos that are entirely or partially their content, and choose, in advance, what they want to happen when those videos are found.

This is how it works: Rightsholders deliver YouTube reference files (audio-only or video) of content they own, metadata describing that content, and policies describing what they want YouTube to do when it finds a match. YouTube compares videos uploaded to the site against those reference files. Our technology automatically identifies the content and applies the rightsholder’s preferred policy.

Rightsholders can choose between three policies when an upload matches their content: 1) make money from it; 2) leave it up and track viewing statistics; or 3) block it from YouTube altogether.

9 Thanks to the options that Content ID gives to copyright owners, it’s not just an anti-piracy solution, but also a new business model for copyright owners and YouTube alike. The majority of partners using Content ID choose to monetize their claims and many have seen significant increases in revenue as a result. Content ID has generated more than a billion dollars for the content industry.

CONTENT ID STATS

More than 5,000 partners use Content ID, including major U.S. network broadcasters, movie studios and record labels.

Content ID scans over More than 400 years 300 million videos of video every day. have been claimed with the help of Content ID.

We have more than 25 million active reference files In the Content ID database; that’s over 1.5 million hours of material.

10 YouTube Copyright Policies

The vast majority of the 100 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute do not infringe anyone’s copyright. Nevertheless, YouTube takes seriously its role in educating YouTube users about copyright and creating strong incentives to discourage infringing activity. As a result, YouTube has a number of policies in place designed to discourage copyright infringement and terminate repeat offenders. For example:

When YouTube removes a video in response to a valid copyright removal notice, we notify the user and apply a “strike” to the account of the user who uploaded the video

Upon receipt of one “strike,” the user account loses a number of account privileges, including the ability to upload videos longer than 15 minutes and use our “Hangouts on Air” live-streaming platform

By completing an online “Copyright School” program and receiving no further strikes during a six-month period, the user can both become educated about copyright and have one strike removed

Upon receipt of three strikes, the user’s account will be suspended and all the videos uploaded to the account will be removed

11 The YouTube Copyright Center

In addition to the Content ID system, copyright owners and their representatives can submit copyright removal notices through the YouTube Copyright Center, which offers an easy-to-use web form, as well as extensive information aimed at educating YouTube users about copyright. The Copyright Center also offers YouTube users a web form for “counter-noticing” copyright infringement notices that they believe are misguided or abusive.

Glove and Boots explains copyright in the YouTube Copyright Center: youtube.com/yt/copyright/.

YouTube Content Verification Program

YouTube offers a Content Verification Program for rightsholders who have a regular need to submit high volumes of copyright removal notices and have demonstrated high accuracy in their prior submissions. This program makes it easier for rightsholders to search YouTube for material that they believe to be infringing, quickly identify infringing videos, and provide YouTube with information sufficient to permit us to locate and remove that material, all in a streamlined manner that makes the process more efficient.

12 Google Web Search

There are more than 60 trillion addresses on the web. Only an infinitesimal portion of those trillions infringe copyright, and those infringing pages cannot be identified by Google without the cooperation of rightsholders. Nearly every paragraph of text, photograph, video, sound recording, or piece of software is potentially protected by copyright law. Moreover, copyright laws generally permit some uses, such as parodies and quotation, even over a copyright owner’s objection. So while we don’t want to include links to infringing pages in our search results, Google needs the cooperation of copyright owners to separate the authorized or unobjectionable uses from infringing ones.

Google relies on copyright owners to notify us when they discover that a search result infringes their rights and should be removed. These notices are submitted through procedures that are consistent with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and similar laws that apply to providers of online services.13

To help copyright owners submit these notices, Google has developed a streamlined submission process. There is no search engine that processes as many copyright removal notices as Google does, and none that process them more quickly. For example:

n I 2013 we received just over 224 million DMCA requests for Google Search results.

e W ultimately removed 222M, which means we rejected or reinstated less than 1% after review because we either needed additional information, were unable to find the page, or concluded that the material was not infringing; and

Our average turnaround time for copyright notices remains less than 6 hours.

In addition, Google incorporates the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site as a signal in our ranking algorithm, as described below.

13 The DMCA is a U.S. law that provides qualifying online service providers like Google with a safe harbor from monetary liability for copyright infringement claims. One of the requirements of these safe harbor provisions is that the service provider (Google, in this case) remove or disable access to allegedly infringing material upon receiving a request that meets certain requirements. Laws governing other jurisdictions, such as Europe’s E-Commerce Directive, have similar requirements for service providers. 13 Submitting Removal Notices

The fastest and most efficient way to submit a copyright removal notice to Google is through our content removal web form, which accepts many different kinds of removals requests, including copyright requests. The information we request in our web form is consistent with the DMCA and similar laws, and provides a simple and efficient mechanism for copyright owners from countries around the world. Since 2012, more than 35,000 different entities have submitted requests to remove URLs from search results for copyright violations.

In addition to the public content removal web form for copyright owners who have a proven track record of submitting accurate notices There are now more than 80 and who have a consistent need to submit TCRP partners, who together thousands of URLs each day, Google created the Trusted Copyright Removal Program for Web submit the vast majority of Search (TCRP). This program streamlines the notices every year. submission process, allowing copyright owners or their enforcement agents to submit large volumes of URLs on a consistent basis. There are now more than 80 TCRP partners, who together submit the vast majority of notices every year.

14 REMOVAL REQUESTS FOR SEARCH SKYROCKET

Since launching new submission tools for copyright owners and their agents in 2011, we have seen remarkable growth in the number of pages that copyright owners have asked us to remove from search results. In fact, today we receive removal requests for more URLs every week than we did in the twelve years from 1998 to 2010 combined. At the same time, Google is processing the notices we receive for Search faster than ever before—currently, on average, in less than six hours. Google has a strong track record of developing solutions that scale efficiently. The trend line is striking—from more than three million pages for all of 2011 to millions of pages per week today. As the numbers continue to swell, it becomes both more difficult and more important to detect and pick out the abusive and erroneous removal notices. Google has never charged copyright owners for providing these services, and we will continue to invest substantial resources and engineering effort into improving our procedures for receiving and processing copyright removal notices.

Top 10 Reporting Organizations in 2013

10M 20M 30M 40M British Recorded Music Industry Ltd 43.3M Degban 40.9M RIAA , Inc. 31.6M MarkMonitor AntiPiracy 15.8M Fox Group Legal 15.1M Takedown Piracy LLC 10.2M Remove Your Media LLC 7.7M Unidam, Inc. 5.5M DMCA Force 4.8M NBCUniversal 3.9M

Top 10 Copyright Owners in 2013

10M 20M 30M 40M BPI Ltd. Member Companies 43.3M RIAA member companies 31.6M Froytal Services Ltd 18.5M Fox 15.4M Microsoft 9.8M RK NetMedia Inc. 8.2M Hydentra L.P 5M XFC Inc. 4.4M DMM.com Labo, Ltd. 4M NBCUniversal 3.9M

15 Transparency

When we remove material from search results, we believe users and the public should be able to see who made the removal request and why. Because copyright infringement allegations are the basis for the vast majority of the legal requests that we receive to remove items from search results, we have taken the following steps to ensure transparency:

Maintaining the Google Transparency Report. In 2012, we added details regarding copyright removal notices to our Transparency Report site.14 Updated daily, the site shows the aggregate number of URLs that we have been asked to remove, as well as who submitted the notices, on behalf of which copyright owners, and for which websites.

Notifying webmasters of removals. If a website operator uses Google’s Webmaster Tools, notification will be provided to webmasters there when a web page in their domain has received a takedown notice.15

Informing users when results have been removed from their search results. When users perform a search where results have been removed due to a copyright complaint, Google displays the following notice:

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.

Providing copies of notices to Chilling Effects. Since 2002, Google has provided a copy of each copyright removal notice that we receive for search results to the nonprofit organization Chilling Effects. By gathering together copyright removal notices from a number of sources, including Google and Twitter, Chilling Effects fosters research and examination of removal notices submitted by copyright owners.16

Detecting and Preventing Abuse

Google works hard to detect and prevent abuses of the copyright removal process. From time to time, we may receive inaccurate or unjustified copyright removal requests for search results that clearly do not link to infringing content.

14 Google, “Transparency Report: Removal Requests,” January 2013 < http://goo.gl/jrQTj> 15 Google, “Webmaster Tools” 2013 16 Chilling Effects, “Legal Scholarship Using Chilling Effects,” December 2010 16 EXAMPLES OF DMCA ABUSE

Here are a few examples of requests that have been submitted through our copyright removals process that were clearly invalid copyright removal requests. In each case, we did not remove the URL in question from search results: • A major U.S. motion picture studio requested removal of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) page for a movie released by its own studio, as well as the official trailer posted on a major authorized online media service. • A U.S. reporting organization working on behalf of a major movie studio twice requested removal of a movie review on a major newspaper website. • A driving school in the U.K. requested the removal of a competitor’s homepage from Google Search, on the grounds that the competitor had copied an alphabetized list of cities and regions where instruction was offered. • A content protection organization acting on behalf of motion picture, record, and sports programming companies requested the removal of search results that linked only to copyright removal requests on Chilling Effects that had originally been submitted by one of its clients. • An individual in the U.S. requested the removal of search results that link to court proceedings referencing her first and last name on the ground that her name was copyrightable. • Multiple individuals in the U.S. requested the removal of search results linking to blog posts and web forums that associated their names with certain allegations, locations, dates, or negative comments. • A company in the U.S. requested the removal of search results that link to an employee’s blog posts about unjust and unfair treatment.

In 2012, we terminated two partners from the Trusted Copyright Removal Program for Web Search for repeatedly sending inaccurate notices through our high-volume submission mechanisms. Because the TCRP is reserved for partners with a track record of submitting accurate notices, access to the program can be revoked where a partner falls short of these high standards.

As the volume of removal notices continues to rise, detecting inaccurate or abusive notices continues to pose a challenge. Google invests continuously in engineering and other solutions to address this. The Transparency Report has also proven useful in detecting abusive notices, as journalists, webmasters, and other interested members of the public have examined the data made available there.

Webmasters may also submit a counter-notice if they determine that a page on their site has been removed from Google Search results due to an erroneous copyright removal notice. Google affords webmasters two ways to be notified if any pages on their sites are targeted by removal notices. First, if the site operator uses Google’s Webmaster Tools, notification will be provided to webmasters there. Second, the Transparency Report shows copyright removal notices received for a domain.

17 Using Copyright Removal Notices in Ranking

In addition to removing pages from search results when notified by copyright owners, Google also factors in the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site as one signal among the hundreds that we take into account when ranking search results. Consequently, sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in search results. This ranking change helps users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily.

While we use the number of valid copyright removal notices as a signal for ranking purposes, we do not remove pages from results unless we receive a specific removal request for the Sites with high numbers of page. Even for the websites that have received removal notices may appear the highest numbers of notices, the number of lower in search results. noticed pages is typically only a tiny fraction of the total number of pages on the site. It would be inappropriate to remove entire sites under these circumstances.

In October 2014, we have improved and refined the DMCA demotion signal in search results, increasing the effectiveness of just one tool rightsholders have at their disposal. As outlined earlier in this report, rightsholders made good use of our removals process to target sites sites that they have not authorized to distribute content and have sent us hundreds of millions of removal requests over the last year.

18 SEARCH AND PIRACY: THE REALITY

In reflecting on the role search engines can play in addressing the problem of piracy, commentators often overlook some important realities:

1. Search is not a major driver of traffic to pirate sites. Google Search is not how music, movie, and TV fans intent on pirating media find pirate sites. All traffic from major search engines (Yahoo, Bing, and Google combined) accounts for less than 16% of traffic to sites like The Pirate Bay.17 In fact, several notorious sites have said publicly that they don’t need search engines, as their users find them through social networks, word of mouth, and other mechanisms.18 Research that Google co-sponsored with PRS for Music in the UK further confirmed that traffic from search engines is not what keeps these sites in business.19 These findings were confirmed in a recent research paper published by the Computer & Communications Industry Association.20

2. Search can’t eradicate pirate sites. Search engines do not control what content is on the Web. There are more than 60 trillion web addresses on the Internet, and there will always be new sites dedicated to making copyrighted works available, as long as there is money to be made doing so. According to recent research, replicating these sites is easy and inexpensive, and attempts to make them disappear should focus on eradicating the business model that supports them.21

3. Volume of allegedly ‘piracy-related’ queries is dwarfed by broader queries. When it comes to building anti-piracy measures, we prioritize efforts where they can make the most difference. Google Search receives more than three billion queries each day. We want to focus our efforts where the users are. The good news is that the most popular queries relating to movies, music, books, video games, and other copyrighted works return results that do not include links to infringing materials. This is thanks to both our constant improvements to the algorithms that power Google Search, and the efforts of rightsholders to prioritize and target their copyright removal notices. So when some critics focus on infringing materials appearing in search results for particular queries, it is important to consider how many users actually make those queries. During the first six months of 2013, Google users searched for22:

“carly rae jepsen call me maybe” “flo rida whistle” 16 TIMES MORE OFTEN THAN 30 TIMES MORE OFTEN THAN “carly rae jepsen call me maybe mp3” “flo rida whistle download”

“game of thrones” “django unchained” 200 TIMES MORE OFTEN THAN 1,000 TIMES MORE OFTEN THAN “game of thrones download” “django unchained free download”

“30 rock” “katy perry” 5,000 TIMES MORE OFTEN THAN 200,000 TIMES MORE OFTEN THAN “30 rock free stream” “free katy perry mp3”

17 Study on file with author, NERA Economic Consulting. A secondary analysis published by TechDirt, http://goo.gl/XESoa 18 TorrentFreak, “Pirate Bay and isoHunt Respond to Google Search Result Punishment,” August 2012 19 BAE Systems Detica, “The Six Business Models for Copyright Infringement,” June 2012 20 CCIA, “The Search Fixation: Infringement, Search Results, and Online Content,” 2013 21 Northeastern University, “Clickonomics: Determining the Effect of Anti-Piracy Measures for One-Click Hosting,” 2013 22 These queries were raised by RIAA and MovieLabs in discussions with Google. 19 Removing Terms Associated with Piracy from Autocomplete and Related Search

Autocomplete is a convenience feature in Google Search that attempts to “complete” a query as it’s typed based on similar queries that other users have typed. Related Search shows queries that other users have typed that may be similar to yours. Google has taken steps to prevent terms closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete and Related Search.

Making Legitimate Alternatives More Visible

In addition to removing infringing pages from search results and using valid removal notices as a ranking signal, Google has a number of new advertising products which further promote authorized sources of content in Search results.

Ads in the right-hand panel. Searches for movies, musicians, albums, etc. on Google will often return a panel on the right- hand side of the search results. These provide users with facts, images and quick answers to their queries. Within these panels, we’ve been testing new ways for advertisers to quickly enable users to watch or listen to content online. For example, a query for the artist “Lorde” on a desktop will display a panel for the band on the right-hand side of the page. Within that panel we may show “Listen now” links from advertisers like Spotify or Beats Music.

Ads on “long tail” consumption-focused queries. When users search with the intention to consume media, we may show new ad formats on those queries directing users to legitimate sources. For example, the query “expendables download” returns an ad format at the top of the page advertising Google Play, Vudu, and Amazon.23 The same ad format triggers on queries for queries like “expendables torrent”. While relatively few users search in this way compared to root queries like “expendables”, we are happy that these new ad formats are driving traffic to legitimate sources of media.

23 At the time of publication. 20 There is more that authorized music, TV, and movie sites can do to help their sites be more effectively indexed by search engines. The film and television industry has launched wheretowatch.org, and the music industry has launched whymusicmatters.com to help consumers find legitimate channels for buying films, TV shows, and songs. And the Music Business Association has recently offered advice to online music retailers on optimizing their sites for better performance in search engine results.24 But these industries could do even more to build album-, movie- and TV show-specific pages that could then surface in search engine results.

Indexing subscription music and video services is also a challenge for search engines. It is difficult for a search engine to return results from licensed services like Spotify or Netflix if it doesn’t know what songs and programs are available from those services. With more information, search engines could return better, more relevant legitimate results to users seeking the content. Google looks forward to continuing collaborative efforts with content owners and authorized services, intended to make the offerings of authorized services more visible in search results.

24 Music Business Association, “INFOGRAPHIC: Search Engine Optimization for Music Websites,” May 2014 21 We’re O SALE P E ! N Advertising

Following the Money

The most effective way to combat rogue sites that specialize in online piracy is to cut off their money supply. These sites are almost exclusively for-profit enterprises, and so long as there is money to be made by their operators, other anti-piracy strategies will be far less effective. As a global leader in online advertising, Google is committed to rooting out and ejecting rogue sites from our advertising services. We are also working with other leaders in the industry to craft best practices aimed at raising standards across the entire online advertising industry.

Best Practices

In April 2011, Google was among the first companies to certify compliance in the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB’s) Quality Assurance Certification program, through which participating advertising companies will take steps to enhance buyer control over the placement and context of advertising and build brand safety.25 This program will help ensure that advertisers and their agents are able to control where their ads appear across the web.

In July 2013, Google worked with the White House’s Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) and other leading ad networks to participate in Best Practices and Guidelines for Ad Networks to Address Piracy and Counterfeiting.26 Under these best practices, ad networks will maintain and post policies prohibiting websites that are principally dedicated to engaging in copyright piracy from participating in the ad network’s advertising programs. By working across the industry, these best practices should help reduce the financial incentives for pirate sites by cutting off their revenue supply while maintaining a healthy Internet and promoting innovation.

25 IAB, “Quality Assurance Guidelines,” November 2011 26 The White House, “Coming Together to Combat Online Piracy and Counterfeiting,” July 2013 22 AdSense

More than two million web publishers use AdSense to make money from their content on the web, making it the chief Google advertising product used by online publishers. The overwhelming majority of those publishers are not engaged in any kind of copyright infringement. AdSense has always prohibited publishers from using AdSense to place ads on pages that contain pirated content, and Google proactively monitors the AdSense network to root out bad publishers.

Since 2012, we have ejected more than 73,000 sites from our AdSense program, the vast majority of those caught by our own proactive screens. Almost all AdSense ad formats include a link that permits a copyright owner to report sites that are violating Google’s policies. Copyright owners may also notify us of violations through a web form.

Each time we receive a valid copyright removal notice for Search, we also blacklist that page from receiving any AdSense advertising in the future.

Google does not want to be in business with rogue sites specializing in piracy. Thanks to our ongoing efforts, we are succeeding in detecting and ejecting these sites from AdSense. While a rogue site might occasionally slip through the cracks, the data suggests that these sites are a vanishingly small part of the AdSense network. For example, we find that AdSense ads appear on far fewer than 1% of the pages that copyright owners identify in copyright removal notices for Search.

23 DoubleClick

DoubleClick offers a suite of online advertising platform solutions for both advertisers and web publishers. The principal customers for DoubleClick services are large advertisers, ad agencies, large publishers, and ad networks. It is virtually unheard of for these sorts of commercial entities to be operating rogue sites specializing in copyright infringement.

DoubleClick also offers a free service to smaller web publishers on a self-service basis through the DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Small Business program. Although the program has policies in place to prohibit its use in connection with infringing activity, rogue publishers have tried to sneak in through this door. Publishers do not pay Google to use this platform, nor does Google pay them for using it. Nevertheless, Google has revised its policies and stepped up enforcement efforts for DoubleClick for Publishers Small Business in an effort to deny rogue sites access to the service as a platform for serving ads sourced from other networks. AdWords

AdWords is Google’s premier advertising product, responsible for the advertisements that appear next to Google search results, as well as the text advertisements on sites across the web. Advertisers pay Google for these placements, generally on a cost-per-impression or cost-per-click basis.

Rogue sites specializing in online piracy generally do not use AdWords. Google receives very few complaints regarding AdWords being used by rogue pirate sites. Nevertheless, we maintain strict policies forbidding the use of AdWords to promote copyright infringement. We take a variety of proactive and reactive steps, through both manual and automated review, to enforce our policies.

BLOGGER

Blogger is Google’s free blog publishing platform, which enables users to create and update blogs. We remain vigilant against use of the Blogger platform by pirates looking to set up a free website. Consistent with other Google products that host user-uploaded content, we will remove infringing blog posts when properly notified by a copyright owner, and will terminate the entire blog where multiple complaints establish it as a repeat infringer. We have also created an automated bulk submission tool for copyright owners who have a track record of reliable submissions and a regular need to submit large volumes of takedown notices. This tool allows qualified copyright owners to obtain rapid removals of infringing posts appearing on Blogger.

24 GOOGLE’S ANTI-PIRACY PRINCIPLES

Create More and Better Legitimate Alternatives. The best way to battle piracy is with better, more convenient, legitimate alternatives to piracy. By developing licensed products with beautiful user experiences, we help drive revenue for creative industries.

Be Efficient, Effective, and Scalable. Google strives to implement anti-piracy solutions that work. For example, beginning in 2010, Google has made substantial investments in streamlining the copyright removal process for search results. As a result these improved procedures allow us to process copyright removal requests for search results at the rate of four million requests per week with an average turnaround time of less than six hours.

Provide Transparency. We disclose the number of requests we receive from copyright owners and governments to remove information from our services. We hope these steps toward greater transparency will inform ongoing discussions about content regulation online. ATTACHMENT B HOW GOOGLE FIGHTS THE ADVERTISEMENT OF COUNTERFEIT GOODS

Thanks to the Internet, it’s never been easier to start a business and reach a huge audience. E-commerce services like eBay, Amazon, and PriceMinister, advertising platforms like Google’s AdWords, and other online services help companies large and small operate at an incredible scale, and empower consumers with more choices in the market. Over 1 million advertisers across 190 countries use AdWords — the majority of which are SMBs. In the U.S. last year alone, the ads-supported Internet contributed hundreds of billions of dollars to the economy and millions of jobs.1

Unfortunately, a small percentage of bad actors misuse legitimate online services to try to sell counterfeit goods. For our part, we received legitimate complaints from a small fraction of one percent of advertisers in the last year.

Counterfeiting isn’t a new problem, of course; just as with any new technology, the Internet creates new complexities, and many stakeholders have a role to play in resolving this issue. It’s critical for brand owners and law enforcement to tackle counterfeiting at its source. Online services and other stakeholders can help, too. Although, it’s important to remember that online services are in no position to determine the authenticity of the millions of advertised goods, as they never even take possession of them, and fraudsters are always coming up with more sophisticated ways to game the system.

GOOGLE WORKS HARD TO STOP MISUSE, AND, EVEN AS USE OF OUR ADVERTISING PLATFORM GROWS, WE’RE CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVING.

● Over the last three years, we shut down over 100,000 AdWords accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods. ● Google has zero tolerance for counterfeit goods on AdWords and if it finds an advertiser is promoting counterfeit in nearly all instances it terminates the advertiser from AdWords. ● We devote significant engineering and machine resources in order to prevent abuse that violates our ads policies, including counterfeiting. Over 99% of AdWords accounts terminated on counterfeit grounds are detected by these systems. In the last year, we invested over $60 million in these resources. ● We provide a way for brand owners to notify us through a reporting form, and we respond to reliable AdWords counterfeit complaints within 24 hours. ● Our relentless crackdown on counterfeit goods is producing powerful results. We banned 7,000 advertisers for promoting counterfeit goods, down from 14,000 in 2013 (and 82,000 in 2012), demonstrating that counterfeiters are increasingly unable to circumvent our advanced enforcement systems. ● Counterfeiting is a problem that stretches across industries and beyond the Internet, so we’ve also assisted both law enforcement and cross-industry anti-counterfeiting efforts.

CLEAR POLICIES & ENFORCEMENT

We have clear policies against using AdWords to promote counterfeit goods. When abuse is brought to our attention, we act expeditiously on it, and we terminate accounts in appropriate circumstances. User education is also key, which is why we’ve created a Shopping Safety Tips page.

Sources: 1. IAB, “Economic Value of the Advertising-Supported Internet Ecosystem,” September 2012 AUTOMATED ABUSE DETECTION

Ads that violate our policies can be tough to detect, as bad guys come up with new ways to cloak their behavior all the time. To combat this, we look at thousands of data signals to automatically analyze every AdWords ad and account, and determine whether it’s likely to violate our policies. Our systems are designed to examine a number of factors, including ad text and keywords and account characteristics (e.g., we might see if the current location matches the billing address).

Depending on this examination, the ad and account will be subject to further manual review, or blocked entirely. No system is perfect, but we’re constantly working to develop our advanced risk modeling systems in order to address new threats. The system is designed to “learn” from past instances of fraud and abuse — the more data the system has about past activity, the better it is about predicting abuse in the future.

COUNTERFEIT REPORTING TOOLS

The cooperation of brand owners is absolutely essential to our efforts. Even though our tools are state of the art, it’s not always easy to spot a fraudster selling fakes. As AdWords is just a conduit between advertisers and consumers, we never take possession of advertised goods, and we can’t know whether any particular item out of the millions advertised is or isn’t authentic.

That’s why we also rely on businesses to report feedback on advertisements themselves. If a counterfeit version of a good is being advertised via AdWords, a brand owner can notify us through a simple form here, and any users can report sites that violate our policies here.

COUNTERFEIT GOODS COMPLAINT WEBFORM

COUNTERFEIT GOODS COMPLAINT WEBFORM LAW ENFORCEMENT

To address illegal activity at its source, we support the enforcement of laws against counterfeiting and respond to appropriate legal process received from enforcement entities. Google regularly reports misconduct to a wide array of law enforcement authorities, including working with officials to combat counterfeiting. Google’s Trust & Safety team also has trained hundreds of law enforcement officials on evolving investigative techniques on the web and emerging trends that Google is seeing, all of which aid in law enforcement effort. We also encourage users to report illegal activity to the appropriate authorities or local reporting center such as the Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov) or the Intellectual Property Rights Center (www.ice.gov/iprcenter).

COLLABORATING WITH INDUSTRY

Counterfeiting is an industry-wide issue, and we work with and support a number of industry groups that work together on enforcement strategy, knowledge sharing, training and networking, including the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition and the International Trademark Association. Working with the White House’s Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), and other leading ad networks, we participated in a set of voluntary Best Practices and Guidelines for Ad Networks to Address Piracy and Counterfeiting.

TAKING ON COUNTERFEITS BEYOND ADS

Along with our significant investment in preventing the advertisement of counterfeits, we take this issue seriously across our products and have clear policies in place. Our enforcement practices include:

Responding to valid complaints regarding bad actors attempting to directly make money from counterfeit goods using AdSense as well as commerce platforms like Shopping, Trusted Stores, and Wallet.

Responding to valid complaints about the sale or promotion of counterfeit goods through content that users host with us, including on Blogger, Google+, Sites, and YouTube.

Removing sites from Web Search based on valid court orders. Where a complainant has a court order adjudicating content on a particular page is unlawful, they can submit that through a simple form, and it is our policy to then remove that page. Ref. Ares(2018)1381255- 13/03/2018 Doc. 9

HOW GOOGLE FIGHTS PIRACY How Google Fights Piracy Table of Contents

page page 3 Introduction 33 Google Web Search 4 YouTube 35 Infringing Results Do Not Appear for the Vast 7 Google Search Majority of Media-Related Queries 8 Google Play 37 Notice-and-Takedown and Demotion Signal 9 Advertising 37 Handling a High Volume of Requests at Scale 10 Working with Government and Industry 40 Trusted Copyright Removal Program Partners 40 Using Copyright Removal Notices in Ranking 42 Removing Terms Associated with Piracy from Autocomplete and Related Search 42 Setting Industry Standards page 43 Making Legitimate Alternatives More Visible 11 The State of the Industry and Online Innovation 44 Google Search Detects Abuse and Values Transparency 16 Google’s Anti-Piracy Principles 45 Examples of DMCA Abuse 47 Transparency 48 Search and Piracy: The Reality

page 17 Copyright by the Numbers

page 50 Google Play 52 Play Provides Better Legitimate Alternatives to Piracy page 52 Music 20 YouTube 52 Movies and TV Shows 21 YouTube’s Impact for Content Creators 53 Books and Magazines 25 How YouTube Benefits the Content Industry 53 Apps and Games 26 YouTube Helps Rightsholders Manage 54 Play Fights Against Piracy Copyrighted Content 26 Content ID 28 YouTube Copyright Policies 30 The YouTube Copyright Center and page Copyright Takedown Notices 55 Advertising 31 YouTube Content Verification Program 56 Following the Money 31 YouTube Values Transparency and Guarding 56 Best Practices Against Abuse 57 AdSense 31 YouTube Counter Notification Procedure 58 DoubleClick 32 Examples of Abusive Notices 59 AdWords

page 60 Conclusion 61 Links to More Information Introduction YouTube Google Search Google Play Advertising Working with Government and Industry

3 How Google Fights Piracy Introduction

Introduction

The internet continues to be a boon for creators, their communities, and the content industry, and Google continues to be a key part of that success. Today, Google’s services provide more content for users, generate more revenue for rightsholders, and do more to battle copyright-infringing activity than ever before. Google takes the challenge of online piracy seriously—we continue to invest significant resources in the development of tools to report and manage copyrighted content, and we work with other industry leaders to set the standard for how tech companies fight piracy. This report describes some of these efforts and shares stories of how Google’s products and services create opportunities for creators around the world while also taking a firm stance against those who misuse our services for copyright infringement.

YouTube YouTube empowers the world to create, broadcast, and share video. Today, millions of content creators from over 80 countries are earning revenue from their YouTube videos through the YouTube Partner Program, and the number of YouTube channels earning revenue of more than $100,000 per year is up 50% year-over-year. To date, YouTube has paid out over $3 billion to the music industry, and our Content ID system on YouTube—which identifies user-uploaded videos to help rightsholders better control their content—has generated over $2 billion for partners since it first launched.

4 How Google Fights Piracy Introduction

Here are a few examples of creators who are using YouTube to broadcast their voices and build successful channels online:

Tyler Ward (US) SSIN (Korea) With millions of fans, three recording studios and plans to SSIN is one of Korea’s top beauty creators, known for her edgy launch his own entertainment network, Tyler Ward found style and big personality. Her videos on YouTube are watched YouTube fame five years ago when he posted a video of himself by over 930,000 subscribers and have generated over 140 and other unknown artists singing an unofficial version of million views on her channel. Thanks in part to her success We Are the World that had been remade to benefit victims of on YouTube, SSIN has gone on to release a book and has been the Haiti earthquake. At the time, this video was the most very active in speaking at lectures and appearing on television searched-for video in YouTube history, and it inspired Ward programs to feature her makeup tips. Riding on the wave of to put out other covers for several months before starting to Korean trends going global, SSIN has also done fan meet-and- release his own music. Fans loved it, and since then, Ward greets everywhere from New York, Abu Dhabi, Tokyo, and has released albums and toured worldwide. His channel now Korea, where she appeared at YouTube FanFest Korea in 2015. has nearly 2 million subscribers and over 430 million views. Thousands of music labels and publishers have signed licensing agreements with YouTube that allow for fan uploaded content like Tyler’s.

Image provided courtesy of Tyler Ward Image provided courtesy of SSIN

Content ID on YouTube has generated over $2 billion for creators.

5 How Google Fights Piracy Introduction

YouTube has also invested more than $60 million in Content ID, a proprietary system of copyright and content management tools to give rightsholders control of their content on YouTube.1 Through 1. For more information, visit Content ID, videos uploaded to YouTube are scanned against a https://goo.gl/4ynNok database of files that have been submitted to YouTube by copyright owners. These copyright owners then get to set the policies that will be applied when a match is made by Content ID, which include monetizing, tracking, or blocking the content. To date, more than 8,000 rightsholders have used Content ID to manage their content on YouTube, with well over 90% choosing to monetize videos containing their copyrighted material. These partners include network broadcasters, movie studios, songwriters, and record labels. The music industry, for example, chooses to monetize over 95% of sound recording claims. Our continued investments in Content ID have resulted in ongoing improvements to its function—from its inception as an audio-only detection system, it has grown to detect video and can now even detect melodies, helping further stymie bad actors’ efforts to fool the system.

Content ID is also an important part of what makes YouTube work for creators. One of the most dynamic parts of our music ecosystem on YouTube are the tributes, backstage footage, remixes, mashups, and concert clips uploaded by fans. Through Content ID and a combination of licenses with labels, publishers, and songwriters, rightsholders can allow creators to use copyrighted content to both celebrate their favorite music and unlock an additional source of revenue. In fact, the music industry generates 50% of its revenue on YouTube from monetizing fan uploads.

YouTube has invested more than $60 million in Content ID.

6 How Google Fights Piracy Introduction

Google Search Google Search organizes and indexes the immense number of publicly-available webpages on the internet. Worldwide, more than 3.5 billion searches are made each day on Google Search, making it the most widely used search engine in the world. Google Search’s popularity has tangible benefits for rightsholders, as it helps more than a billion people worldwide find licensed copies of the content they want to consume. For example, between our Search and Google News services, Google sends over 10 billion clicks per month to news publishers’ websites.

There are more than 60 trillion addresses on the Web, but only an infinitesimal portion of these have any connection to piracy. Nevertheless, Google does not want to include any links to infringing material in our search results, and we make significant efforts to prevent infringing webpages from appearing. The heart of these efforts can be summarized as follows:

Clean results for media-related queries users actually type: Thanks to the efforts of Google’s engineers, the vast majority of media-related queries that users submit every day return results that include only legitimate sites.

Takedown notices and demotion signal: Although the vast majority of media-related queries yield clean results, there are some infrequent queries where the results do include problematic links.2 For these “long-tail” queries, Google 2. collaborates with copyright owners to address the problem in a few ways. First, Google has For example, users searched for the query “Katy Perry” 14,812 times more developed state-of-the-art tools that allow rightsholders and their enforcement agents to often than the query “Katy Perry free submit takedown notices efficiently at high volumes (tens of thousands each day) and process download.” See pages 44 and 45 for those notices, on average, within six hours. Second, Google then uses those notices to demote more information and examples. sites for which we receive a large number of valid takedown notices, making them less visible in search results.

Presenting legitimate alternatives: Google believes that providing convenient, compelling, legitimate alternatives is one of the best means of fighting piracy. Accordingly, Google has launched a number of initiatives to present legitimate alternatives to users as part of search results, including providing advertisements on queries for movies and music to link users to legitimate means of purchasing content. Google also collaborates with copyright owners and music services to help them understand how to use SEO (search engine optimization) techniques to get their offerings into search results for “long-tail” queries where they may not be appearing today.

7 How Google Fights Piracy Introduction

Google Play Google Play is an online store delivering apps and premium entertainment, giving users one place to find, enjoy, and share their favorite apps, games, movies, music, books, and more on the Web or any device. With more than 1 billion active users in 190+ countries around the world, Play is an important distribution platform for developers to build a global audience. Play also provides a platform for developers to generate revenue—between February 2014 and February 2015, Play paid more than $7 billion to developers.

3. Some examples of developers who’ve benefited from Play in the last For more information, see year include: https://goo.gl/hecM2t

BabyFirst (US) This US company distributes educational content for babies, toddlers, and parents via its app on the Google Play store. BabyFirst has received over 30 million downloads, with 40% more downloads on Google Play than any other platform. By localizing their app listing page into 10 languages and using other tools the Google Play platform provides, BabyFirst were able to increase downloads by 50% across their portfolio of apps.3

The Guardian (UK) The app for this leading UK news publication provides users with licensed copies of its articles in one easy-to-use interface. The Guardian app is driving user engagement by taking advantage of Google Play and Android features like notifications and beta testing. They are also experimenting with Android Wear to generate more user interest in their articles. Improving user engagement with Android’s features has also helped the publication lift the rating for their app from 4.0 to 4.4 on Google Play.

Between February 2014 and February 2015, Google Play paid more than $7 billion to developers.

8 How Google Fights Piracy Introduction

In 2015, Play expanded to dozens more countries worldwide and continues to improve its procedures for reporting and removing infringing apps. Google Play’s policies prohibit copyright infringement, and Play vigorously enforces those policies by removing infringing material and taking steps to terminate developers who violate these policies.

Advertising Google provides several advertising platforms for web publishers and advertisers to build awareness of their brands, engage new customers, and generate new sources of revenue. Google has worked with other industry leaders to establish best practices meant to raise advertising standards throughout the industry. For example, since 2015, Google has been participating in ongoing discussions with the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG) Antipiracy Working Group to develop best practices and tools to prevent the placement of online ads on websites dedicated to piracy or the sale of counterfeit goods. This effort builds on Google’s collaboration in 2013 with the White House’s Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) and other leading ad networks to participate in Best Practices and Guidelines for Ad Networks to Address Piracy and Counterfeiting.

Our policies for advertising prohibit sites that distribute infringing works from using our advertising services. Since 2012, we have blacklisted more than 91,000 pages from our AdSense program for violations of our copyright policy, the vast majority of which were caught by our own proactive screening processes. We have also terminated over 11,000 AdSense accounts for copyright violations in that time.

9 How Google Fights Piracy Introduction

Working with Government and Industry Google is actively involved in discussions with policymakers around the world on how to best fight online piracy and connect users with legitimate content. Some examples from the last year include:

In October 2015, Google filed a public comment with the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) on the development of the Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement, the agency’s plan for fighting piracy while also continuing to grow the creative economy.4 In our briefing, we noted the voluntary 4. steps Google has taken to combat piracy and counterfeiting, and how these measures Katherine Oyama, “Development of the Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual align with IPEC’s interest in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. Property Enforcement, FR Doc. 2015- Government’s intellectual property enforcement efforts. 21289,” August 2015, In April 2015, Google participated in the US Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force multi-stakeholder process to improve the operation of the Digital Millennium 5. Copyright Act’s (DMCA) notice-and-takedown system.5 These discussions resulted in the The DMCA is a U.S. law that provides qualifying online service providers 6 publication of a list of best practices for DMCA notice-and-takedown processes. like Google with a safe harbor from monetary liability for copyright In March 2016, Google partnered with the Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) to organize infringement claims. One of the a copyright forum in Canberra with the participation of industry leaders, policymakers requirements of these safe harbor and international experts. It provided an opportunity for Australian and New Zealand provisions is that the service provider (Google, in this case) remove or government officials and advisers to meet with experts on copyright reform and learn disable access to allegedly infringing from their experiences reforming copyright laws. material upon receiving a request that meets certain requirements. Laws In March 2015, Google supported the “follow the money” process initiated by the French governing other jurisdictions, such as Minister of Culture. As a member of IAB France, Google signed a charter of best practices Europe’s E-Commerce Directive, have to fight online copyright infringement. Signatories to this charter committed to the similar safe harbors for service providers establishment of clear and transparent principles to prevent advertising services from engaging with “rogue sites.” 6. United States Patent and Trademark Office, “U.S. Commerce Department Google is also actively working with other industry leaders to Announces Digital Millennium standardize processes for identifying pirated content and to develop Copyright Act Multistakeholder Forum Results,” April 2015, best practices for online advertisers. Some examples include:

In October 2015, Google took part in CASBAA’s (Asia’s association for the multi-channel audio-visual content creation and distribution industry) Convention workshops on developing best practices to combat online piracy, including how best to introduce the “follow the money approach” to fight piracy in the region.

In April 2015 and 2016, Google participated in WIPO workshops for experts and IPOs from ASEAN member-states focusing on the value of copyright and how it spurs innovation.

In February 2015, Google worked with a cross-industry group in the United Kingdom called the Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) to create self-regulatory best 7. JICWEBS, “Minimising Risk of Digital practice principles for online advertisers to help ensure that ads do not appear on alleged Display Advertising Misplacement,” 7 copyright-infringing websites. February 2015,

10 The State of the Industry and Online Innovation Google’s Anti-Piracy Principles

11 How Google Fights Piracy The State of the Industry and Online Innovation The State of the Industry and Online Innovation

Today, more music, video, written works, apps, and software are being created by more people in more places than ever before.8 This 8. Computer & Communications boom in the creative economy has generated an enormous amount Industry Association, “The sky is rising,” October 2014, of revenue worldwide—internationally, more than $8 trillion in commerce is now conducted online each year.9 Across Europe, the 9. massive growth of online music, books, movies, and games has Katherine Oyama, “Development of the Joint Strategic Plan on generated over €36 billion in digital revenue between 2003 and 2013, Intellectual Property Enforcement, a 12% increase in total creative industry revenue.10 In Southeast Asia, FR Doc. 2015-21289,” August 2015, digital products and services are projected to add $1 trillion to the region’s GDP over the next ten years.11 And in the U.S., the internet is 10. Olaf Acker, Florian Gröne, Laura one of the greatest success stories of economic growth, responsible Kropiunigg, Thierry Lefort, “The digital future of creative Europe: 12 in the past few years for 15% of GDP growth. The impact of digitization and the Internet on the creative industries in Europe,” May 2015, The internet has created new streams of revenue for content creators ; TechDirt, “The Sky is Rising 2,” 2013, and fundamentally changed how users consume content; people can now consume licensed copies of entire seasons of TV shows in 11. one sitting on Netflix and Google Play, or stream an entire licensed AtKearny, “The ASEAN Digital Revolution,” 2016, catalogue of an artist’s music on Spotify or Google Play Music. Services like YouTube are seeing unprecedented growth in 12. exporting cultural content between countries, with expansions McKinsey Global Institute, “Internet into more countries and languages than ever before. matters: The Net’s sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity,” May 2011, These changes have been good for creators, consumers, and the content industry. In the past year alone, the music industry has experienced a 6.9% growth in sales and has pulled in over $25 billion in revenue.13 Every kind of creative endeavor, both amateur and 13. Music Business World, “$25 Billion: the professional, is being transformed by the new opportunities and best number to happen to the global music business in a very long time,” December lower costs made possible by digital tools and online distribution. 2015, ; IFPI, “Digital music in figures,” 2015, Google has been at the forefront of creating some of these new ways for consumers to obtain licensed copies of digital content. We build platforms where users can legitimately purchase, consume, and

12 How Google Fights Piracy The State of the Industry and Online Innovation discover entertainment and culture, and we also pioneer innovative new approaches to monetizing online media. The extent of Google’s ability to elevate digital artists using its platforms can be seen by the number of YouTube celebrities and artists who were recognized at the 2016 Grammy Awards in the United States for their success at reaching global audiences.14 14. Saba Hamedy, “The music industry is all about its new digital stars, and the Grammys proved it,” February 2016, The creative growth and benefits of the Web have also torn down the traditional physical borders surrounding content creation and consumption. Today, people are connected to and consuming content from other countries more than ever before. For example, in 2015, 95% of the views of Korean K-Pop YouTube videos came from outside Korea.15 The Global Innovation Index now even uses 15. “G Is for Gangnam Style: “Number of YouTube Uploads” as a data point in determining how #10YearsofYouTube”, May 2015, innovative a country has become.16 16. The Global Innovation Index, 2015, When it comes to fighting the infringement of content creators’ intellectual property, the wide availability of convenient, legitimate forms of content consumption is one of the most effective weapons. The music industry has demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach by licensing a variety of music services, including free, advertising-supported streaming services (like YouTube, Spotify 17. and Pandora), download stores (like Apple’s iTunes), and on-demand Copia, “The Carrot or the Stick?” October 2015, ; subscription products (like YouTube Red and Google Play Music). Mediavision, “Music Sweden File Sharing & Downloading,” 2011, ; Spotify, The effects of these licensing deals on online piracy is clear— “New Spotify study sees encouraging downwards trend in music piracy in for example, Spotify’s success in Sweden, Australia, and the the Netherlands,” July 2013, Netherlands has resulted in a significant drop in piracy rates ; Billboard, “Streaming Services Make Inroads in these countries, demonstrating that a greater availability of Into Piracy Down Under, Spotify’s Will Page Tells Bigsound” September 2014, legitimate forms of streaming content causes rates of piracy ; TorrentFreak, to plummet.17 Netflix has had similar effects in countries like “Spotify Helps to Beat Music Piracy, European Commission Finds,” Australia, where a 2015 study showed the launch of the licensed October 2015, video-on-demand product and others like it resulted in a drop 18. in piracy of film and television shows.18 A November 2015 study Ariel Bogle, “Report: Piracy levels drop in Australia thanks to Netflix, Stan and released by the UK regulator OFCOM also noted several features Presto,” September 2015,

13 How Google Fights Piracy The State of the Industry and Online Innovation of content-delivery services that could be improved in order to further reduce piracy, including working with rightsholders to increase the catalogues of available works that users can consume and decreasing the window of time between when a television show, song, or movie premieres and when it is available for download.19 19. IDATE, “Online Content Study: Legitimate content delivery services and rightsholders can also have Changes in the distribution, discovery, and consumption of lawful and an effect on piracy by allowing their catalogues to be more searchable unauthorised online content,” so that users can find out just what it is they have access to. November 2015,

Another effective means of fighting the infringement of intellectual property is to “follow the money” to starve infringing sites of their income. The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit in the United Kingdom has estimated that shutting off advertising revenue would close 95% of these infringing sites.20 This approach has proven to be 20. Mike Weatherley, “Strides in the right effective: for example, in March of 2016, three of the most popular direction,” July 2015, file-sharing sites in Europe shut down citing problems monetizing their service through advertising.21 Google has joined other industry 21. TorrentFreak, “Three Large leaders in the “follow the money” approach to fight online piracy not File-Sharing Sites Announce Shutdown,” March 2016, only by ejecting infringing sites from Google’s advertising services, but also by working to establish industry-wide best practices for shutting down advertising to infringing sites.

As a result of improvements in the availability of convenient, legitimate forms of content and the efforts of industry leaders and law enforcement to adopt a “follow the money” approach, the

We build platforms where users can legitimately purchase, consume, and discover entertainment and culture, and we also pioneer innovative new approaches to monetizing online media.

14 How Google Fights Piracy The State of the Industry and Online Innovation proportion of unauthorized music consumed online is expected to fall from 35% in 2012 to less than 10% by 2018.22 In fact, these 22. IDATE, “Online Content Study: efforts have already resulted in a massive drop in online piracy in Changes in the distribution, discovery, and consumption of the UK—a report from July 2016 by the Intellectual Property Office lawful and unauthorised online (IPO) found that the percentage of UK users illegally accessing film, content,” November 2015, music, and other material online dropped to its lowest recorded rate 23. in the five years since the IPO began studying online piracy rates, Intellectual Property Office, “Online while the rate of users accessing content solely through legitimate Copyright Infringement Tracker Latest wave of research Mar 16 - May 16,” service platforms like Spotify, Netflix, and YouTube increased to its July 2016, highest point in those five years.23 Online piracy in general appears 24. to be on the decline, but despite these advances, Google continues to IDATE, “Online Content Study: Changes in the distribution, 24 take the fight against online piracy extremely seriously. discovery, and consumption of lawful and unauthorised online content,” November 2015,

Online piracy in general appears to be on the decline, but despite these advances, Google continues to take the fight against online piracy extremely seriously.

15 How Google Fights Piracy The State of the Industry and Online Innovation Google’s Anti-Piracy Principles The following principles guide the actions of Google employees, as well as our substantial investments of time, money, and computing power to improve and expand our content offerings and anti-piracy efforts:

Create More and Better Legitimate Alternatives Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply. The best way to battle piracy is with better, more convenient, legitimate alternatives to piracy, which can do far more than attempts at enforcement can. By developing products with compelling user experiences like Google Play Music and YouTube, Google helps drive revenue for creative industries and steer users toward legitimate alternatives.

Follow the Money Rogue sites that specialize in online piracy are commercial ventures, which means that one effective way to combat them is to cut off their money supply. Google is a leader in rooting out and ejecting rogue sites from our advertising and payment services, and we help establish best practices across the industry.

Be Efficient, Effective, and Scalable Google strives to implement anti-piracy solutions that work at scale. For example, as early as 2010, Google began making substantial investments in streamlining the copyright removal process for search results. As a result, these improved procedures allow Google to process copyright removal requests for search results at the rate of millions per week with an average turnaround time of less than 6 hours—a number that has stayed consistent despite a doubling of the volume of pages submitted for review.

Guard Against Abuse Unfortunately, fabricated copyright infringement allegations can be used as a pretext for censorship and to hinder competition. Google is committed to ensuring that it detects and rejects bogus infringement allegations, such as removals for political or competitive reasons, even as it battles online piracy.

Provide Transparency Google discloses the number of requests it receives from copyright owners and governments to remove information from its services in the hopes that such steps toward greater transparency will inform ongoing discussions about online content regulation.

16 Copyright by the Numbers

17 How Google Fights Piracy Copyright by the Numbers

Dollars We Have Generated Resources We Have invested

$7 Billion+ 50 Million+ the amount paid by Google Play to the number of active reference files in our developers on our platform between Content ID database. February 2014 and February 2015.

$3 Billion+ 8,000+ the amount YouTube has paid to the the number of partners using Content music industry to date. ID to manage and monetize their content, a 38% increase since our 2014 report. These partners include major network broadcasters, movie studios, music publishers, and record labels.

$2 Billion+ 6 Hours the amount YouTube’s Content the average time it takes Google ID system alone has generated for to process a DMCA request for rightsholders since being launched. Google Search. Fan-uploaded content claimed through Content ID accounts for roughly 50% of the music industry’s revenue from YouTube. 18 How Google Fights Piracy Copyright by the Numbers

Actions We Have Taken

the number of webpages requested to be removed from Google Search per Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 2015 alone, a 60% increase from the year before. Google removed over 98% of these webpages, meaning 558 Million we pushed back on around 11 million webpages from URLS REQUESTED complaints that we determined were incomplete or erroneous claims.

the number of ads disapproved for copyright infringement on Google’s AdWords service between September 2015 and 670,000 March 2016. ADS DISAPPROVED

the percentage of copyright issues on YouTube that were resolved via Content ID, which gives rightsholders a new way to manage and control their content without having % to send takedown notices. Over 90% of all Content ID 98 claims result in monetization, which generates significant ISSUES RESOLVED revenue for YouTube partners.

19 YouTube YouTube’s Impact for Content Creators How YouTube Benefits the Content Industry YouTube Helps Rightsholders Manage Copyrighted Content Content ID YouTube Copyright Policies The YouTube Copyright Center and Copyright Takedown Notices YouTube Content Verification Program YouTube Values Transparency and Guarding Against Abuse YouTube Counter Notification Procedure Examples of Abusive Notices

20 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

YouTube

YouTube empowers the world to create, broadcast, and share video. Today, more than 400 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, spanning every conceivable topic from politics to comedy, from action sports to religion. Every day, people watch hundreds of millions of hours of video on YouTube, generating billions of views for videos that are created by a global creative community. Indeed, YouTube is a truly global platform—it has launched local versions in more than 80 countries, and users can navigate YouTube in a total of 76 different languages (covering 95% of the internet population). As a result of this global reach, 80% of YouTube’s views are from outside of the United States.

YouTube’s Impact for Content Creators YouTube has unleashed a new generation of content creators. Today, there are millions of channels from over 80 different countries that earn revenue from their videos through the YouTube Partner Program—from independent musicians and creators to some of the world’s biggest record labels, movie studios, and news organizations. The amount of revenue YouTube drives toward content creators has continued to grow—for example, the number of channels earning more than $100,000 per year on YouTube is up 50% year-over-year.

Many of these content creators have also been able to translate their success on YouTube into entirely new revenue streams and business 25. Lisa Richwine, “Young and quirky opportunities. On top of revenue share from YouTube’s advertising, YouTube stars lift traditional book publishers,” September 2015, these top creators have diversified their success through new projects ; Eilene that span from brand endorsement deals to consumer products such Zimmerman, “Getting YouTube Stars to Sell Your Product,” February 2016, 25 as New York Times best-selling books.

21 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

To further invest in and support this creative community, we have opened YouTube Spaces in Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, São Paulo, Berlin, Mumbai, Toronto, and Rio de Janeiro. The YouTube Spaces are collaborative production facilities available to YouTube creators for free where they can access tools and guidance to innovate and experiment. At the YouTube Space, creators can learn from industry experts, share ideas over a coffee with fellow YouTubers, and use the latest equipment to create their next great video. As of October 2015, creators filming in YouTube Spaces have produced over 12,000 videos which have generated over 1 billion views and more than 90 million hours of watchtime.

Photo of YouTube Space New York. For more information, visit youtube.com/space.

22 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

One of the most inspiring things about YouTube is the way people around the world use it to express their passion and creativity—and to turn those things into a career. Below are just a few recent examples of creators succeeding on YouTube:

Lindsey Stirling (US) Kurt Hugo Schneider (US) Lindsey Stirling is an electronic artist, violinist, dancer, and Kurt Hugo Schneider has over 7 million subscribers and is a composer who found her audience on YouTube, toured the pillar of the YouTube music community, earning himself a world, won one of the first YouTube Music Awards, and won a name as a producer and director on YouTube and beyond. He Billboard Music award this past year for Best Electronic Album. has collaborated with several other famous artists including She now has over 8 million subscribers and has put out two albums Rixton, Avicii, Hunter Hayes, Jason Mraz and many more. independently, Shatter Me and Lindsey Stirling. She has also devel- And though he’s a phenomenal musician, his passions keep oped a lucrative professional touring career selling out venues him producing—20+ breakout YouTube creators/musicians like Red Rocks, and she just recently published her first book, have been featured and discovered on his YouTube channel, The Only Pirate at the Party, which made the Jan. 31 New York including Sam Tsui 6 years ago, Tyler Ward 4 years ago, Times’ hardcover nonfiction best-seller list. Lindsey has also Alex Goot 4 years ago, and many more. Kurt has also toured become involved with mobile gaming as she continues to expand around the world to see his fans, most recently throughout her wildly successful brand, and she was recently cited by Forbes Asia with YouTube FanFest. as one of the top earning YouTube stars.

Image provided courtesy of Lindsey Stirling Image provided courtesy of Kurt Hugo Schneider

Cassey Ho (US) Bilingirl Chika (Japan) Cassey Ho is the creator behind Blogilates—one of the biggest Bilingual Chika is Japan’s leading educational creator who makes health and fitness channels on YouTube. With over 3 million popular English lesson videos for over 500,000 subscribers. Her subscribers, Cassey mixes traditional fitness instruction, recipes, practical and fun videos have led her to grow a large fan base cooking and lifestyle. Her Blogilates channel won the Streamy around the world and she was most recently named as Change Award for Best Fitness Channel 2 years in a row, and Cassey’s Ambassador for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development book, Hot Body Year Round, came out just last year. Starting last Action campaign. December, Cassey’s method, POP Pilates, became a class in 24 Hour Fitness locations nationwide. POP Pilates was 100% developed by Cassey with YouTube as her distribution channel and is now in a mainstream gym.

23 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

Hannah Trigwell (UK) Hannah began her music career busking on the streets of Leeds, and now has over 53 million views and more than 400,000 subscribers on YouTube. She has toured the UK several times and released two EPs while still in her final year of university. Because of YouTube’s global reach, her single Headrush was able to reach Number 1 in Vietnam without her ever having set foot in that country.

Image provided courtesy of Hannah Trigwell

My Cupcake Addiction / Elise Strachan (Australia) Elise Strachan from Australia’s Gold Coast started by selling cupcakes at her local markets before launching her YouTube channel, My Cupcake Addiction, in 2011 specialising in baking and decorating tutorials. Elise opens her kitchen to more than 2.7 million subscribers worldwide. Elise’s video showing how to bake a Skittles rainbow cake has been viewed nearly 24 million times. Her signature approach of taking unique recipes and making them accessible has built her a diversified global fanbase of people who love everything sweet!

24 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

How YouTube Benefits the Content Industry YouTube has partnerships with every major record label, as well as hundreds of collecting societies, independent labels, and music publishers, to help share recorded music with fans on YouTube. Through licensing agreements with our partners in the music industry as well as the tools we offer like Content ID, rightsholders are compensated when fans visit YouTube to experience music videos. To date, YouTube has paid over $3 billion to the music industry alone, and fan uploads now drive 50% of the revenue paid out to the music industry.

Each time a music fan chooses YouTube over an unauthorized source for music, it’s a victory against piracy. A September 2015 study by Sandvine showed that as the overall internet bandwidth devoted to legitimate video services has grown, the bandwidth used for torrenting has fallen, suggesting that online piracy has been eclipsed by new, legitimate online activities.26 YouTube 26. Torrent Freak, “BitTorrent Traffic and other online content services have been an important part Share Drops to New Low,” September 2015, of helping shape young music fans’ consumption habits by directing users toward compelling and easy-to-access legitimate alternatives. In fact, YouTube has been so successful at pushing users towards legitimate content that since February 2013, Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 chart has incorporated YouTube views when ranking a song’s popularity.27 As of this report, 27. Billboard Top 100 FAQ twenty-one YouTube videos have now had 1 billion or more views—there were only 3 videos to reach this mark as of last year—and several of the most-watched videos on YouTube are 28. YouTube Playlist, “One Billion Club,” 28 from artists signed to major labels.

YouTube has now paid over $3 billion to the music industry.

25 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

YouTube Helps Rightsholders Manage Copyrighted Content

Content ID In 2007, YouTube developed and launched Content ID, a proprietary copyright management system that allows rightsholders to effectively manage their content online. With this system, rightsholders are able to identify user-uploaded videos that contain their content and choose in advance what they want to happen to those videos.

Today, Content ID scans videos uploaded to YouTube against more than 600 years of audio and visual reference content. Over 98% of copyright issues are resolved via Content ID. Looking at the music industry specifically, 99.5% of reported sound recording copyright claims are automated through Content ID—meaning that Content ID automatically identifies the work and applies the copyright owner’s preferred action without the need for intervention by the copyright owner in all but 0.5% of cases.

This is how it works: Rightsholders deliver reference files (audio-only or audiovisual) of content they own, metadata describing that content, and what action they want YouTube to apply when Content ID finds an appropriate match. YouTube compares videos uploaded to the site against those reference files. Our technology automatically identifies the content and applies the rightsholder’s preferred action for that content.29 29. For more information, see https://goo.gl/A48tna

Content ID accounts for roughly 50% of the music industry’s revenue from YouTube.

26 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

Rightsholders can choose between several actions when an upload matches their content, including:

1. make money from it; 2. leave it up and track viewing statistics; or 3. block it from YouTube altogether.30 30. For more information, see https://goo.gl/nzDGrS Thanks to the different options that Content ID gives to copyright owners, it’s not just an anti-piracy solution but also a copyright management tool. Through Content ID, rightsholders can earn money when their content hasn’t been properly licensed by the uploader—in fact, over 90% of all Content ID claims result in monetization. As a result of monetization, Content ID accounts for roughly 50% of the music industry’s revenue from YouTube and has generated $2 billion for rightsholders.31 Its size and effectiveness are 31. Christophe Muller, “YouTube: ‘No unparalleled in the industry—Content ID now boasts over 50 Million other platform gives as much money back to creators,” April 2016, active reference files.

Some examples of content creators that have directly benefited from Content ID include:

The Recording Industry Association of Korea (RIAK), which gives fans within Korea and beyond a new way to celebrate Korea’s top hit songs from the 80’s and 90’s. In fact, fan-generated content, such as covers of these older songs, now drives over 90% of RIAK’s watchtime and revenue on YouTube.

Through Content ID, Nippon Animation, a Japanese animation studio, discovered that one of their classic titles from the 70’s is popular among viewers in the Middle East. By using Content ID to identify these new fan bases, Nippon Animation is now developing a new global content distribution strategy, including the official marketing of this property in the Middle East region.

T-Series, one of India’s largest music labels and movie studios, embraced YouTube as their primary online distribution platform for their hit Bollywood music videos, trailers, and playlists. Their engagement with YouTube has generated over 10 million subscribers on their main channel and over 7.7 billion views, with over 60% of their views coming from outside of India. They even used Content ID to identify emerging talent on YouTube—by seeing who was covering their hit songs on Content ID, they found and partnered with YouTube singers such as Shirley Setia, Arjun, and Zack Knight.

27 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

Content ID is good for users as well. When copyright owners choose to monetize or track user-submitted videos, it allows users to continue to freely remix and upload a wide variety of new creations using existing works. If video uploaders get a Content ID claim on a video that they believe is invalid, they can choose to dispute that claim.32 Fewer than 1% of claims are disputed, and of that number, 32. For more information, see copyright owners affirmatively agree with 25% of the disputes that https://goo.gl/6lBubT are issued by uploaders.

YouTube Copyright Policies The vast majority of content uploaded to YouTube does not infringe anyone’s copyright. Nevertheless, YouTube takes its role in educating YouTube users about copyright seriously and creates strong incentives to discourage infringing activity. As a result, YouTube has a number of

Content ID has generated more than $2 billion for rightsholders.

28 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube policies in place designed to discourage copyright infringement and terminate repeat offenders:

1. When YouTube removes a video in response to a valid copyright removal notice, we notify the user and apply a “strike” to the account of the user who uploaded the video;

2. As strikes accrue, we disable a user’s access to features that can be abused, including live streaming privileges and uploading videos longer than 15 minutes;

3. By completing an online “Copyright School” program, the user can both learn about copyright and become eligible to have one strike expire from their account; and

4. Upon receipt of three strikes, the user’s account will be suspended and all the videos uploaded to the account will be removed.

Fewer than 1% of Content ID claims are disputed.

29 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

The YouTube Copyright Center and Copyright Takedown Notices While over 98% of copyright issues on YouTube are resolved via Content ID, the remaining 2% of copyright issues are manually sent by rightsholders to YouTube through DMCA takedown requests. Copyright owners and their representatives can submit copyright takedown notices through the YouTube Copyright Center, which offers an easy-to-use webform as well as extensive information aimed at educating YouTube users about copyright.

Glove and Boots explains copyright in the YouTube Copyright Center: https://youtube.com/yt/copyright/

30 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

YouTube Content Verification Program In addition to an easy-to-use public webform, YouTube offers a Content Verification Program for rightsholders who have a regular need to submit high volumes of copyright removal notices and have demonstrated high accuracy in their prior submissions. With an easy-to-use interface for reporting videos to YouTube’s copyright team, this program makes it easier for rightsholders to search for their material on YouTube and quickly identify allegedly infringing videos. Once they’ve identified this material, they can easily provide YouTube with sufficient information for us to locate, review, and remove that material, all in a streamlined manner that makes the process more efficient.

YouTube Values Transparency and Guarding Against Abuse

YouTube Counter Notification Procedure YouTube strives to be as transparent as possible with content creators and our users when we remove content. For that reason, we notify users when we take action on their content or their accounts. If a video uploader believes that a copyright owner has submitted an invalid DMCA takedown request for their video, they can file a counter notification via a webform to make their case for why the copyright owner might have made the wrong call.33 Unless the 33. For more information, see copyright owner commences litigation, we may reinstate the video. https://goo.gl/CKW3se

Over 98% of copyright issues on YouTube are resolved via Content ID.

31 How Google Fights Piracy YouTube

Examples of Abusive Notices YouTube takes the abuse of our tools seriously. Any partners found abusing these tools will have their access to the tools disabled. As part of our effort to help the YouTube community and copyright owners alike better understand copyright management on YouTube and develop best practices as a community, we’ve published some examples of abusive copyright requests on the platform:

A major soft drink company sent a takedown notice targeting a YouTube news channel for including excerpts from a commercial in its critical coverage of that commercial. We didn’t remove the video.

A California city sent takedown notices aimed at a citizen using portions of videos of public city council meetings to criticize the mayor. We didn’t remove the videos.

We received a request from a major US broadcaster to remove a British TV network’s live stream of the Republican presidential debate. Both networks are part of the same company. We removed the video. The claimant later retracted the complaint.

A major Canadian TV broadcasting network sent a request to remove a Conservative Party attack ad that criticized a clip from an interview of Justin Trudeau. We rejected the complaint because the claimant wasn’t able to explain why the video wasn’t protected by fair dealing.

A British wedding photographer sent a request to remove a video created by customers who were dissatisfied with his work. We asked the claimant to consider whether the video is protected by fair use, but never heard back, and didn’t remove the video.

A Belgian aquatic park sent a request to remove a video protesting animal abuse for showing their dolphin show choreography. We rejected the complaint because the choreography wouldn’t qualify for copyright protection.

YouTube strives to be as transparent as possible with content creators and our users when we remove content.

32 Google Web Search Infringing Results Do Not Appear for the Vast Majority of Media-Related Queries Notice-and-Takedown and Demotion Signal Handling a High Volume of Requests at Scale Trusted Copyright Removal Program Partners Using Copyright Removal Notices in Ranking Removing Terms Associated with Piracy from Autocomplete and Related Search Setting Industry Standards Making Legitimate Alternatives More Visible Google Search Detects Abuse and Values Transparency Examples of DMCA Abuse Transparency Search and Piracy: The Reality

33 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Google Web Search

Worldwide, more than 3.5 billion searches are made each day on Google Search, making it the most widely used search engine in the world. Search’s popularity has tangible benefits for rightsholders, as it helps more than a billion people worldwide find licensed copies of content. For example, between our Search and Google News services, Google sends over 10 billion clicks per month to publishers’ websites.

Takedown notices and demotion signal: Although the vast majority of media-related queries yield clean results, there are some infrequent queries where the results do include problematic links. For these “long-tail” queries, Google collaborates with copyright owners to address the problem in a few ways. First, Google has developed state-of-the-art tools that allow rightsholders and their enforcement agents to submit takedown notices efficiently at high volumes (tens of thousands each day) and process those notices, on average, within six hours. Second, Google then uses those notices to demote sites for which we receive a large number of valid takedown notices, making them less visible in search results.

Presenting legitimate alternatives: As explained earlier, Google believes that providing convenient, compelling, legitimate alternatives is one of the best means of fighting piracy. Accordingly, Google has launched a number of initiatives to present legitimate alternatives to users as part of search results, including providing advertisements on queries for movies and music to link users to legitimate means of purchasing content. Google also collaborates with copyright owners and music services to help them understand how to use SEO (search engine optimization) techniques to get their offerings into search results for “long tail” queries where they may not be appearing today.

34 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Infringing Results Do Not Appear for the Vast Majority of Media-Related Queries The search results for the vast majority of media-related queries show results that include only legitimate sites in the top results pages. This is thanks to both our constant improvements to the algorithms that power Google Search and the efforts of rightsholders to prioritize and target their copyright removal notices.

Nevertheless, some critics paint a misleading picture by focusing on the results for rare, “long tail” queries, adding terms like “watch” or “free” or “download” to a movie title or performer’s name. While the search results for these vanishingly rare queries can include potentially problematic links, it is important to consider how rare those queries are. Look at the relative frequency of these Google searches in 2015:34 34. Several of these queries have been referenced by the RIAA and other “Star Wars The Force Awakens” searched 402× more often than “Watch Star Wars rightsholder organizations The Force Awakens”

“Taylor Swift” searched 4534x more often than “Taylor Swift download”

“PSY Gangnam Style” searched 104× more often than “PSY Gangnam Style download”

“Mad Max” searched 836× more often than “Mad Max stream”

“Pixels” searched 240× more often than “Watch Pixels”

“Interstellar” searched 145× more often than “Watch Interstellar” The relative frequency of any search queries can be “Terminator: Genisys” searched 134× more often than compared using the Google “Watch Terminator: Genisys” Trends tool, available at https://www.google.com/trends/ “Chappie” searched 320× more often than “Watch Chappie”

“Avatar” searched 132× more often than “Watch Avatar”

“The Martian” searched 189× more often than “The Martian watch online”

“Kingsman: The Secret Service” searched 162× more often than “Watch Kingsman: The Secret Service”

“Bridge of Spies” searched 916× more often than “Watch Bridge of Spies”

35 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

y” sea rr rch Pe e y d t a K “

14812more often than “Katy Perry free download”×

Out” sear e ch id e s d n I “

1055more often than × “Stream Inside Out”

s” s one ear hr ch T e f d o

G “

784more often than × “Game of Thrones download”

36 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Notice-and-Takedown and Demotion Signal While the search results for the vast majority of media-related queries submitted by actual users are free of links to infringing material, Google nevertheless continues to focus on the rare, long-tail queries where the search algorithm alone cannot eliminate all links to infringing material.

Given how complicated it can be to determine what does and does not violate copyright, Google cannot identify which links lead to infringing materials without the cooperation of rightsholders. Nearly every paragraph of text, photograph, video, sound recording, or piece of software is potentially protected by copyright law. Moreover, copyright laws generally permit some uses, such as parodies and quotation, even over a copyright owner’s objection. So while Google doesn’t want to include links to infringing pages in our search results, we need the help of copyright owners to separate the authorized or unobjectionable uses from infringing ones.

Fortunately, Google has built an efficient, scalable system for receiving copyright removal notices from copyright owners and their enforcement agents. These notices are submitted through procedures that are consistent with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and similar laws that apply to providers of online services. These notices not only let us know what web pages to remove from our search results, but also provide the data used to apply a search ranking demotion signal to sites for which Google receives a large number of valid notices.

Handling a High Volume of Requests at Scale To help copyright owners submit these copyright removal notices, Google has developed a streamlined submission process built around an online webform.35 Google’s content removal webform accepts 35. You can find our webform and more many different kinds of removal requests, including copyright information about this process by requests. The information we ask for in our webform is consistent visiting www.support.google.com/legal with the DMCA and similar laws, and provides a simple and efficient

37 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search mechanism for copyright owners from countries around the world to submit notices to us. Since 2012, more than 70,000 different reporting organizations have submitted requests to remove webpages from search results for copyright violations. Google has never charged copyright owners for providing these services, and we continue to invest substantial resources and engineering efforts into improving our procedures for receiving and processing copyright removal notices.

Since launching this submission tool for copyright owners and their agents, we have seen remarkable growth in the number of pages that copyright owners have asked us to remove from search results. In fact, today Google receives removal requests for more webpages every week than we did in the twelve years from 1998 to 2010 combined. Over 558 million webpages were requested to be removed in 2015 alone. Google removed over 98% of these webpages upon review; the remaining 11 million webpages were rejected or reinstated because we either needed additional information, were unable to find the page, or concluded that the material was not infringing.

The growing number of notices sent to Google by an increasing volume of different copyright owners and enforcement agents demonstrates the effectiveness and success of the notice-and-takedown system. As the internet continues to grow rapidly, and as new technologies make it cheaper and faster for copyright owners and enforcement agents to detect infringements online, we can expect these numbers to continue to increase. Yet despite this increasing

Google receives removal requests for more webpages every week than we did in the twelve years from 1998 to 2010 combined.

38 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search volume, Google continues to improve its ability to receive requests and efficiently remove content faster than ever before—currently, on average, in less than six hours for Search requests.

Top 10 Reporting Organizations Between 2014 and 2015 (In URLs)

Degban 137,980,363 BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Ltd. 114,178,735 Rivendell 86,385,612 MarkMonitor AntiPiracy 64,937,338 Remove Your Media LLC 45,271,922 AudioLock.NET 34,743,069 Takedown Piracy LLC 32,182,148 Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. 28,839,216 Skywalker Digital, Ltd. 26,569,567 Fox Group Legal 23,708,671

BPI LTD Member Companies 122,398,730 MG Premium Ltd. 65,292,591 RIAA member companies 28,522,280 Metropolitan 26,687,603 MG Content RK Limited 25,054,971 Fox 23,709,981 VIZ Media LLC 23,637,119 Froytal Services Ltd. 20,978,747 DMM.com Labo, Ltd. 18,414,070 Dreamroom Productions, Inc. 17,228,268

39 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Trusted Copyright Removal Program Partners In addition to our content removal webform, Google provides a solution for copyright owners who have demonstrated a proven track record of submitting accurate notices and who have a consistent need to submit thousands of webpages each day. Google created the Trusted Copyright Removal Program (TCRP) for Search to streamline the submission process, allowing copyright owners or their enforcement agents to submit large volumes of webpages on a consistent basis. There are now more than 114 TCRP partners who together submit the vast majority of notices every year.

Using Copyright Removal Notices in Ranking In addition to removing pages from search results when notified by copyright owners, Google also factors in the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site as one signal among the hundreds that we take into account when ranking search results. Consequently, sites for which Google has received a large number of valid removal notices appear lower in search results. This ranking change helps users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily and helps steer users away from infringing content—one study showed that the prominence of legal sites in search results impacts user choices to consume legitimate content instead of pirate content.36 36. IDATE, “Online Content Study: Changes in the distribution, discovery, and consumption of lawful and unauthorised online content,” November 2015,

Google is processing the notices we receive for Search faster than ever before—currently, on average, in less than six hours.

40 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

This process has proven extremely effective—immediately upon launching improvements to our demotion signal in 2014, one major torrent site acknowledged traffic from search engines had dropped by 50% within the first week.37 In May 2016, we found that demoted 37. TorrentFreak, “Google’s New sites lost an average of 89% of their traffic from Google Search. These Search Downranking Hits Torrent Sites Hard,” October 2014, successes spur us to continue improving and refining the DMCA demotion signal.

While we use the number of valid copyright removal notices as a signal for ranking purposes, we do not remove pages from results unless we receive a specific removal request for the page. Even for the websites for which we have received the largest numbers of notices, the number of “noticed” pages is often only a tiny fraction of the total number of pages on the site. It would be inappropriate to remove entire sites under these circumstances.

The combination of efficient processing of takedown notices and the demotion signal gives copyright owners a powerful tool against rogue sites. As new rogue sites emerge, copyright owners can target their removal notices at these new sites, which then provides Google with information we can use to update the ranking signal.

There are now more than 114 TCRP partners, who together submit the vast majority of notices every year.

41 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in search results.

Removing Terms Associated with Piracy from Autocomplete and Related Search Autocomplete is a convenience feature in Google Search that attempts to “complete” a query as it’s typed based on similar queries that other users have previously typed. Related Search shows queries that other users have previously typed that may be similar to yours. Google has taken steps to prevent terms closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete and Related Search.

Setting Industry Standards Google has done a significant amount of work to help set industry standards for fighting piracy on search engines. For example, in 2014 and 2015, Google participated in the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force multi-stakeholder process, convened by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), 38. aimed at improving the operation of the DMCA notice-and-take- United States Patent and Trademark Office, “U.S. Commerce Department down system. As part of that process, Google contributed to a best Announces Digital Millennium || practices document for improving the efficiency of the DMCA Copyright Act Multistakeholder Forum Results,” 7 April 2015 38 notice-and-takedown process for both senders and recipients.

In May 2016, we found that demoted sites lost an average of 89% of their traffic from Google Search.

42 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Making Legitimate Alternatives More Visible In addition to removing infringing pages from search results and using valid removal notices as a ranking signal, Google has developed a number of new strategies that further promote authorized sources of content in our search results.

“Cards” to direct users to licensed copies of content Searches for movies, musicians, albums, etc. on Google will often return a “card” at or near the top of search results. These cards provide users with facts, images and quick answers to their queries. Within these cards, we’ve been testing new ways for advertisers to quickly enable users to watch or listen to content online. For example, in the card that appears in response to the query for the movie “Mad Max,” Google is able to display links to different sites where you can rent or purchase a licensed copy of the film.

The card that appears for searches for the movie “Mad Max”

43 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Watch Actions on “long tail” consumption-focused queries When users search with the intention to consume media, we may show new action formats on those queries directing users to legitimate sources. For example, the query “star wars download” returns a card near the top of search results directing users to legitimate options to watch the film through YouTube, Vudu, and Amazon Video. The same card also appears for queries like “star wars stream.” While relatively few users search in this way compared to title-only queries like “star wars,” we are happy that these “watch action” cards are driving traffic to legitimate sources of content.

To help expand efforts like these that lead users to licensed copies of content, there is more that authorized music, TV, and movie sites can do to help their sites be more effectively indexed by search engines.39 Google looks forward to continuing collaborative efforts 39. For example, we worked with the with copyright owners and content delivery services to make licensed Music Business Association to help publish guidelines on search engine copies of content even more visible in search results. optimization for music websites— Music Business Association, “SEO for Music Websites (Part II)”, 2014, Google Search Detects Abuse and Values Transparency Google works hard to detect and prevent abuses of the copyright removal process. As the number of copyright removal requests continue to swell, it becomes both more difficult and more important to detect abusive and erroneous removal notices.

44 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Some of the copyright takedown requests we receive are flawed, incomplete, or downright abusive. A major study by UC Berkeley and Columbia found that nearly a third of copyright takedown requests submitted to Google (28.4%) had characteristics that raised clear questions about their validity.40 In these circumstances, we may refuse 40. Jennifer M. Urban, Joe Karaganis, to remove a URL from our search results or choose to reinstate content Brianna L. Schofield, “Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice,” that we had previously removed. Between 2012 and 2015, Google March 2016, refused to remove or reinstated more than 11 million webpages from our search results.

Examples of DMCA Abuse Here are a few examples of requests submitted through our copyright removals process that were clearly invalid. In each case, we did not remove the URL in question from search results:

A major U.S. motion picture studio requested removal of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) page for a movie released by its own studio, as well as the official trailer for the film posted on a major authorized online media service.

A U.S. reporting organization working on behalf of a major movie studio twice requested removal of review of its own movie on a major newspaper website.

A driving school in the U.K. requested the removal of a competitor’s homepage from Google Search, on the grounds that the competitor had copied an alphabetized list of cities and regions where instruction was offered.

A company in the U.S. requested the removal of search results that link to an employee’s blog posts about unjust and unfair treatment.

An anti-piracy enforcement firm representing a music label filed a copyright complaint asking us to delist dozens of homepages containing the word “coffee” in the title. These webpages had nothing to do with the identified copyrighted work.

Google refused to remove or reinstated more than 11 million webpages from our search results.

45 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

An individual claiming to be a candidate for political office in Egypt filed a copyright complaint to remove two pages on Egyptian news sites reporting on the individual’s arrest record.

A poet sent repeated takedown notices targeting criticism and commentary relating to the poet’s online copyright enforcement efforts.

A well-known publisher of children’s books sent a takedown notice targeting the use of excerpts by a critic discussing the use of gun imagery in children’s literature.

A physician claiming a copyright in his signature sent a takedown notice aimed at a document related to the suspension of his license to practice medicine.

We take our commitment to guarding against abuse especially seriously when it comes to our Trusted Copyright Removal Program—we have acted to terminate or suspend partners from the program for repeatedly sending inaccurate notices through our high-volume submission mechanisms. As the volume of removal notices continues to rise, detecting inaccurate or abusive notices becomes even more challenging. We continue to invest more resources to address this issue. Google’s Transparency Report has also proven useful in detecting abusive notices, as journalists, webmasters, and other interested members of the public have examined the data made available there.41 41. For more information, please visit https://google.com/transparencyreport/ Webmasters may also submit a counter notice if they determine that a page on their site has been removed from Google Search results due to an erroneous copyright removal notice. Google affords webmasters two ways to be notified if any pages on their site are targeted by removal notices. First, if the site operator uses Google’s Search Console, a notification will be provided to webmasters there. Second, the publicly available Transparency Report shows copyright removal notices received for any particular domain.

46 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Transparency When we remove material from search results, we believe users and the public should be able to see who made the removal request and why. Because copyright infringement allegations are the basis for the vast majority of the legal requests that we receive to remove items from search results, we have taken the following steps to ensure transparency:

1. Maintaining the Google Transparency Report. In 2012, we added details regarding copyright removal notices to our Transparency Report site.42 Updated daily, the site shows 42. the aggregate number of webpages that we have been asked to remove, as well as who Google, “Transparency Report: Removal Requests,” January 2016, submitted the notices on behalf of which copyright owners and for which websites. https://goo.gl/v2IDGQ

43. 2. Notifying webmasters of removals. If a website operator uses Google’s Search Console, a notification will be provided to webmasters there when a web page on their domain has received a takedown notice.43 Google, “Webmaster Tools,” 2016,

3. Providing copies of notices to Lumen. Since 2002, Google has provided a copy of each 44. copyright removal notice that we receive for search results to the nonprofit organization Lumen. By gathering together copyright removal notices from a number of sources, including Google and Twitter, Lumen fosters research and examination of removal Lumen Database, notices submitted by copyright owners.44

4. Informing users when results have been removed from their search results. When users perform a search where results have been removed due to a copyright complaint, Google displays the following notice:

47 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

Search and Piracy: The Reality In reflecting on the role search engines can play in addressing the problem of piracy, commentators often overlook some important realities:

1. Search is not a major driver of traffic to pirate sites Google Search is not how music, movie, and TV fans intent on pirating media reach pirate sites. A 2011 study found that all traffic from major search engines (Yahoo, Bing, and Google combined) accounts for less than 16% of traffic to sites like The Pirate Bay, and recent statistics from ComScore confirm these numbers.45 Research that Google 45. co-sponsored with PRS for Music in the UK further confirmed that traffic from search TechDirt, “Study on file with author, NERA Economic Consulting. A secondary engines is not what keeps these sites in business.46 These findings were confirmed in a analysis published by TechDirt,” 2011, 47 research paper published by the Computer & Communications Industry Association. ; ComScore, 2015,

2. Search can’t eradicate pirate sites 46. Search engines do not control what content is on the Web. There are more than 60 BAE Systems Detica, “The Six Business trillion web addresses on the internet, and there will always be new sites dedicated Models for Copyright Infringement,” to making copyrighted works available as long as there is money to be made doing June 2012, so. According to recent research, replicating these sites is easy and inexpensive, and 47. attempts to make them disappear should focus on eradicating the business model CCIA, “The Search Fixation: 48 that supports them. In fact, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit in the United Infringement, Search Results, Kingdom has estimated that shutting off advertising revenue would close 95% of these and Online Content,” 2013, sites.49 However, a few bad actors in advertising have continued to support pirate sites. A January 2016 report from the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual 48. Property Rights notes that a small number of advertising intermediaries are Northeastern University, “Clickonomics: responsible for over 90% of the advertising on alleged pirate sites, which continues Determining the Effect of Anti-Piracy to be a primary source of their revenue.50 Rather than focusing on Search, a “follow Measures for One-Click Hosting,” 2013, the money” approach is the most promising means of fighting piracy.

49. 3. Whole-site removals are ineffective and over-censor content Mike Weatherley, “Strides in the right While Google may demote a site in our search results if we receive enough copyright direction,” July 2015, removal notices for it, Google does not remove an entire site from search results for copyright infringement. Whole-site removal is ineffective and can easily result in the 50. censorship of lawful material. Blogging sites, for example, contain millions of pages from European Observatory on Infringements hundreds of thousands of users, as do social networking sites, e-commerce sites, and of Intellectual Property Rights, cloud computing services. All can inadvertently contain material that is infringing. Even “Digital Advertising on Suspected Infringing Websites,” January 2016, on alleged “pirate sites”, several studies have shown that tens of thousands of documents, files, and other types of content are downloaded legally everyday.51 And even for the sites for which Google receives the largest number of copyright removal requests, the number 51. of pages identified as infringing are often only a fraction of the total number of pages we TechDirt, “Yes, There Are Many, Many, index from those sites.52 Many, Many Legal Uses Of BitTorrent,” October 2012,

Google’s existing copyright removal framework provides copyright owners with an 52. effective and efficient means to remove any infringing page from search results. Google Transparency Report, 2016, Removing or blocking an entire site could not only impinge on free speech by

48 How Google Fights Piracy Google Web Search

entirely removing lawful pages that appear on the same site, but it would also be counterproductive. Whole site removal would simply drive piracy to legitimate sites and social networks that search engines cannot reasonably eliminate from search results. For “rogue” websites dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeit, a widespread number of experts, policymakers and industry analysts believe that a “follow the money” approach is a more effective measure to fight them.

Finally, whole-site removal sends the wrong message by favoring over-inclusive private censorship over the rule of law. Embracing such an overbroad approach to address one domestic law violation (copyright) will embolden those who seek similar whole-site removal remedies for violations of other laws (e.g., insults to the king, dissident political speech). This would jeopardize free speech principles, emerging services, and the free flow of information online globally in contexts far removed from copyright.

4. Google Search cannot proactively filter for copyright-infringing content Another myth is that Google could create a tool to filter the Web for allegedly infringing content and remove images, video, and text from our search results proactively. Such a system is both infeasible and unnecessary. One problem is that there is no way to know whether something identified as infringing in one place and at one time is also unlawful when it appears at a different place and at a different time. Some uses of material are authorized, or are permitted by exceptions to copyright like fair use. Copyrights are often licensed to different entities for different geographic regions and may also change hands, with different licensors or owners taking different approaches.

Even more fundamental for Search is the problem that Google doesn’t have a copy of every media file available online (in contrast to YouTube, where Google hosts the videos). Google Search indexes the text, images, and links on web pages. Google does not, and could not, download every audio and video file on the internet in order to identify whether it is the same music or video as one previously targeted by a copyright removal notice. Even were Google to try such a thing, rogue sites could easily block Google’s indexing crawlers from accessing such files, rendering the effort ineffective.

Such an unprecedented filtering effort is also unnecessary in light of existing mechanisms developed in collaboration with copyright owners. As detailed above, notice-and-takedown, when combined with the use of a demotion signal that takes previous notices into account, already addresses the problem of rogue sites, preventing their appearance for the vast majority of search queries. Continued “follow the money” efforts are also proving successful.

49 Google Play Play Provides Better Legitimate Alternatives to Piracy Music Movies and TV Shows Books and Magazines Apps and Games Play Fights Against Piracy

50 How Google Fights Piracy Google Play

Google Play is an online store that connects users with a diverse set of content and applications from various channels including Apps & Games, Books, Movies & TV, Music, and Newsstand. On Google Play, people can find, purchase, and enjoy entertainment for their computers, tablets, or smartphones. Play has also partnered with all of the major record labels, publishers, and movie studios to offer millions of songs and books, thousands of movies and TV shows, and thousands of news sources for the enjoyment of users across Android devices.

There are more than a billion active Google Play users around the world in more than 190 countries, presenting a tremendous opportunity for creative industries. As of May 2015, more than 60 billion apps were downloaded globally from the Play store. Google Play has also expanded rapidly into new countries in the last year: Play Music is now available in 62 countries, Play Movies in 105 countries, and Play Books in 75 countries. All this means that Google Play is a massive boon for content creators—between February 2014 and February 2015, we paid more than $7 billion to developers.

51 How Google Fights Piracy Google Play

Play Provides Better Legitimate Alternatives to Piracy Each channel of Google Play provides users with direct access to licensed copies of content, giving users compelling alternatives to piracy:

Music Play Music offers users four services in one: a subscription service offering 35 million songs, an ad-supported radio service to try it all out, a locker to store your music collection online for free, and a store to purchase the music you want to own forever. Google Play has “scan-and-match” licenses that enable users to quickly and easily put their personal music collections in the cloud so they can be accessed from any connected device. Our Play Music subscription service lets users listen to millions of songs on demand for a monthly fee.

These products are driving revenue to the music industry. And thanks to our partnerships with rightsholders around the world, Google Play Music is available to a global audience. Between May 2014 and May 2015, the number of Google Play Music subscribers more than doubled.

Movies and TV Shows Through partnerships with 200+ film & TV global distributors, Google Play offers tens of thousands of recently released movies and TV shows. We also offer innovative features that take advantage of the digital format to drive user engagement—for example, Info Cards that appear when a movie or TV show is paused and provide more information about the actors and music in a scene.

52 How Google Fights Piracy Google Play

Books and Magazines Google Play is home to the world’s largest selection of eBooks—with more than 5 million titles available. More than 48,000 publishers have joined the Partner Program to promote their books on Play, including nearly every major U.S. publisher. We have also partnered with major publishers worldwide to make more than 3,000 news sources available in Google Newsstand, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, India Today, Manila Bulletin, and many more. These partnerships foster additional ways for users to enjoy these periodicals across all of their devices and create a new market for magazines and newspapers.

Apps and Games Google Play is an engine of economic opportunity for application developers because it gives them a free platform to build on and reach millions of users. More than a million apps and games are available on Google Play, and they’ve been downloaded over 60 billion times.

In addition to the benefits that Apps & Games provides to creators, several of the most popular apps are delivering licensed music, movies, and TV shows to users, including:

Netflix, which launched on Android in 2011, allows subscribers to stream TV and movies.

HBO GO allows users with a subscription to HBO’s licensed TV and movie material to watch these shows on their mobile and tablet devices

Spotify is a subscription music services that offers free, ad-supported access—as well as subscription access—to a huge catalogue of licensed music.

Google Play provides game developers with a platform to showcase their creativity and sell their apps directly to gamers. Google Play Games is the fastest growing mobile game network of all time—three out of every four Android users play games from this service, and it activated more than 180 million new users in the six months between December 2014 and May 2015 alone.

53 How Google Fights Piracy Google Play

Play Fights Against Piracy Google Play operates under stringent policies for taking copyright-infringing content down from its services. Google Play uses both proactive and reactive processes for finding and removing infringing content. Our proactive processes check that apps uploaded to our Play store meet certain criteria. Our reactive process provides users with a webform to notify us of allegedly infringing apps that our proactive processes may have missed. When someone submits a request to us via our external webform, our dedicated team reviews the notification and takes the appropriate action Between September 2014 and September 2015, we removed approximately 10,000 apps and games from the Play Store for copyright infringement as a result of webform notifications.

Google Play uses both proactive and reactive processes for finding and removing infringing content.

54 Advertising Following the Money Best Practices AdSense DoubleClick AdWords

55 How Google Fights Piracy Advertising

Advertising

Google provides several advertising platforms for web publishers and advertisers to build awareness of their brands, engage new customers, and generate new sources of revenue. By working with other industry partners, we have helped set industry standards for safe online advertising. We also work diligently to block infringing sites from using our services.

Following the Money Among the most effective ways to combat rogue sites that specialize in online piracy is to cut off their money supply. These sites are almost exclusively for-profit enterprises, and so long as there is money to be made by their operators, other anti-piracy strategies will be far less effective. As a global leader in online advertising, Google is committed to rooting out and ejecting rogue sites from our advertising services. We also work with other advertising leaders to craft best practices aimed at raising standards across the entire online advertising industry. For example, Google has worked with regulators and other industry leaders in the UK, France, Italy, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere to create self-regulatory principles that help ensure ads do not appear on alleged copyright-infringing websites.53 53. JICWEBS, “Minimising Risk of Digital Display Advertising Misplacement,” February 2015, Best Practices In April 2011, Google was among the first companies to certify compliance in the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB’s) Quality Assurance Certification program, through which participating advertising companies take steps to enhance ad buyer control over the placement and context of advertising in order to build brand 54. safety.54 This program helps ensure that advertisers and their agents IAB, “Quality Assurance Guidelines,” November 2011, are able to control where their ads appear across the Web.

56 How Google Fights Piracy Advertising

In July 2013, Google worked with the White House’s Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) and other leading ad networks to participate in Best Practices and Guidelines for Ad Networks to Address Piracy and Counterfeiting.55 Under 55. The White House, “Coming Together these best practices, ad networks will maintain and post policies to Combat Online Piracy and Counterfeiting,” July 2013 prohibiting websites that are principally dedicated to engaging in online piracy from participating in the ad network’s advertising programs. By working across the industry, these best practices help reduce the financial incentives for pirate sites by cutting off their revenue supply.

In 2015, Google began participating in ongoing discussions and the development of best practices arising out of the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG) Anti-Piracy Working Group. This working group is also focused on bringing advertisers, rightsholders, and platforms together to develop additional best practices and tools to prevent the placement of online ads on websites dedicated to piracy or the sale of counterfeit goods.56 And in the February 2015, Google worked 56. Trustworthy Accountability Group, with a cross-industry group in the United Kingdom called the Digital “TAG Anti-Piracy Working Group,” Trading Standards Group (DTSG) to create self-regulatory best practice principles for online advertisers to help ensure that ads do not appear on alleged copyright-infringing websites.57 57. JICWEBS, “Minimising Risk of Digital Display Advertising Misplacement,” AdSense February 2015, More than two million web publishers use AdSense to make money from their content on the Web, making it the chief Google advertising product used by online publishers. The overwhelming majority of those publishers are not engaged in any kind of copyright infringement. AdSense has always prohibited publishers from using AdSense to place ads on pages that contain pirated content, and Google proactively monitors the AdSense network to root out bad publishers.

57 How Google Fights Piracy Advertising

Since 2012, Google has ejected more than 91,000 sites from its AdSense program for violating the platform’s copyright policy. The vast majority of these ejections were caught by AdSense’s own proactive screens. Google has also terminated over 11,000 AdSense accounts for copyright violations. Almost all AdSense ad formats include a link that permits a copyright owner to report sites that are violating Google’s policies. Copyright owners may also notify Google of violations through a webform. Each time Google receives a valid copyright removal notice for Search, we also blacklist that page from displaying any AdSense advertising in the future.

Google does not want to be in business with rogue sites specializing in piracy. Thanks to our ongoing efforts, Google is succeeding in detecting and ejecting these sites from AdSense. While a rogue site might occasionally slip through the cracks, the data suggests that these sites are a vanishingly small part of the AdSense network. For example, AdSense ads appear on far fewer than 1% of the pages that copyright owners identify in copyright removal notices for Search. Of course, when Google does find such a violation, we take action against the AdSense publisher as well.

DoubleClick DoubleClick offers a suite of online advertising platform solutions for both advertisers and web publishers. The principal customers for DoubleClick services are large advertisers, ad agencies, large publishers, and ad networks. It is virtually unheard of for these sorts of commercial entities to be operating rogue sites specializing in copyright infringement. Nevertheless, Google prevents publishers from using Doubleclick to display ads on pages that have been identified as infringing, just in case.

58 How Google Fights Piracy Advertising

AdWords AdWords is Google’s premier advertising product, delivering the advertisements that appear next to Google Search results as well as the text advertisements on our network of partner sites across the Web. Google has zero tolerance for copyright-infringing ads in Search, and has dedicated considerable human and engineering resources across the company to develop and implement measures to root out infringing ads. Between September 2015 and March 2016, Google disapproved over 670,000 ads that we suspected of copyright infringement. Users can also notify Google of ads that they believe are copyright-infringing using a reactive webform.

59 Conclusion Links to More Information

60 How Google Fights Piracy Conclusion

Conclusion

Today, Google’s services provide more content for users, generate more revenue for rightsholders, and do more to battle copyright-infringing activity than ever before. Through our YouTube and Google Play products, we have helped millions of content creators worldwide generate revenue, reach a global audience, and manage their content. We have also provided consumers with easy-to-use platforms for finding licensed copies of their favorite content. Through Google Search, we have indexed and organized the Web to help everyday users find the information they are searching for, and we have taken significant efforts to prevent infringing links from appearing in our search results. Through our advertising services, we help millions of web publishers and businesses advertise on the web, and we continue to work with other industry leaders to establish best practices meant to raise advertising standards throughout the industry. Through our work with regulators and other industry leaders, we have helped set the standard for how tech companies fight piracy, and we look forward to continuing to raise that standard into the future.

Links to More Information

For more information, you can visit the links below:

Google Transparency Report https://google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/

YouTube Copyright Center https://youtube.com/yt/copyright/

Google Legal Request Webform https://support.google.com/legal

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European entrepreneurs can reach 1 billion viewers in 80 countries on YouTube and engage with new customers across the world and grow their business. For example, after launching its YouTube channel, the UK cosmetics start-up Look Fabulous Forever saw hundreds of thousands of views, doubled sales, and visits to its website from 24 different countries. Danish Slikhaar's men hair products attracts 50% of the visitors to its online store via its YouTube channel.

We know that their success is closely linked to ours. This is why we provide a wide range of support programs to help businesses master the potential of YouTube.

Sweden's kanalG'ati? is Scandinavia's biggest Verena-hased Mercatopoll runs a franchìe lam !g i.. 1- ; ц - . '•Obľube .banne' dedicated to angling, with 'or selling used goods Mereatopolt Olmec a channel rrearec b\ - a year - ‘ over ¿0,000 subsc .bers and close to 10 mi'lion sitcom on location in es own shops and created teaches peop'e·. "asm' views in 2009, Jonan Ruhe started using a natonai campaign capťvaťng its and enee channelnasc-tf.èred^ï·,v 1 . vouTube to successfully build his audience, Thought these v'ouTube vdeos. it butt ¡*s brand generate ’"venue from advertisers in the and the trust between sellers and buyers that ¡3 analog sector, and arve traffic to his angling critical to ifs business online s‘ore

7 A European creative & cultural community A EUROPEAN CREATIVE & CULTURAL COMMUNITY

Creators large and small host their videos on YouTube and generate revenue, and this is noi limited to music videos

European creators also-End.new audiences· ' across the EU - '.rover 1.6 .bdion hours·.of ' videos uploaded from Fronce, Italy Germany I · and Spam isw.atehed by viewers 'm 'other EU - countries. overí 5 billióit' hours of videos 'uploaded fröm France, tály Germany and Spain European creators on YouTube arė diverse. are watched, by viewers'.m other ED . Creators arge and'small·hcstj'thėir vidéos ' countries. ,οη YouTube and generate revenue, and in s s not Limited to music .videos. ' European " European creativity is booming on YouTube, as ľ ' creators, a iso-excel at promoting-new talents . European creators get discovered and reach* •producing comedy· videos, educaiona. new'audiences. European YouTube channels ..videós andanimated films. Euroöeán cultura1 . · . ..receive around a. quarter of YouTube's global institutions, such as the Berm Philharmonic V watch time, providing a, powerful tool for European culture fand talent.,to reach across successfully to - bring į Europe's culturo, the World: ■ · л .•.heritage troaudiencès ¿¡cross the world. ' YouTube: digital as an engine for European Culture

There’s no better place than YouTube for artists to connect with their audience

YouTube generates revenue directly for over That is how culture brings us together. 3 million European creator partners through YouTube's technology - a content-management advertisements and paid subscriptions. .To tool called Content ID - turns these expressions parrners generate revenue on YouTube date, YouTube has paid over 2 billion USD (around 2 billion Euros) to the music industry- of fan love into a source of revenue for alone. rightholders. Since 2007, YouTube has paid There's no better place than YouTube for artists out close to 1 billion Euros (1 billion USD) to connect with their audience: on YouTube, to rightholders owners who have permitted audiences share, remix, comment and covers YouTube users to share and remix their the videos they love. video works.

Around 2 billion Euros (over 2 billion USD) paid to the music industry YouTube delivers unique insights for creators - from precise information for rightholders on views and payments, to insights into where a creator is most popular, his top tracks, fan remixes. In fact, some of this information is used for Billboard's top charts or airplay for example on NRJ radio in France. Tlirough YouTube's Music Insights, anyone can find where an artists is most popular - helping artists identify new markets, plan their tours and engage with their fans. Did you know that British artist Ed Sheeran was huge in the Philippines? That French band Daft Punk was more popular in the I'S that in France on YouTube? That Germany's Tokyo Hotel is most popular in Mexico. Buenos Aires and Poland? mmm vstel : i я :Щ:

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Nurturing European talent

As of August 2015, there have been over 25,000 visits to the European YouTube Spaces for workshops, events and filming

YouTube Spaces in Ber! n and Lpndpn provide . trainings, networking -events for- the .creative comrnunity, and · state of the art ■ production facilities, all' freely, available;·,to. European origina] viceos creators. As of August 2015 there have been over 25,000 vis.ts to the' European YouTube. viewed ------Spaces for workshops,, events- and pinning. YouTube creators nave usea these YouTube -production spaces m. London and Berlin- to

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YouTube works with established European cultural actors to support new European talent through a range of programmes

YouTube works with established European cultural actors to support new European talent through a IL PROTAGONISTA range of programmes. Our Joint Academy with French collecting society SACD is supporting France's next generation of creators. The Italy "YouTurn" creator contest, operated by Endemol The ΊΙ Protagonista» is hosted by Rome's Beyond and sponsored by YouTube, was recently Scuola d'Arte Cinematografica Gian Maria launched at the Berlinale International Film Volonté It is a partnership between major Festival in Berlin. During the Media Convention Italian cinema industry associations (Anica, MPA, FAPAV and Univideo) and YouTube, in Berlin in May 2015, six out of the near 150 dedicated to fostering new talent through a contestants were awarded a cashprize for their contest and masterclasses. creative and high-quality videos.

European creative & cultura! communities

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Italy’s’· Cinecittà. Luce «institute "or Light»· founded lih .Т882ДЙе EerimerPni^armoniker The popular Italian b’aňď,Ho e le Ştooe Ţese. 2CELUCŞ· entertan 'audiences; ¿round the YouTube.cnaonei allows audiences .to relive., Thavą bėeh ąmong the'worlds mostŢml.nent· Ţecentiy reached out tp.ţbe Yóú.tu;bego.rr,munitý world v;:in jbesr ncredidė raient and passen -fhe-mcsi.. beautiful documentares ana videos..·· ^dWffħeitr^s Tor--Nļariy.yekis.:'Since launching asking-young guìtarlplayers toipp:.oad videos; of ,for- performing muse .The,young Croar aus Tönn Italy's- Jiigtõ.ry ■'This:, priceless archiva;, "•hiv YouTube channeu in 2009, they have themselves for the'opportunity'do'colįaborate Luká Sul c snd St¡e?an Hauser 'were propelled features news'ee'si rms and stories'pf Italy '’ ; amassed, over33imuiion views,.making iťóne· About rOOO’Yid.epŞ have, oeėn received w-th. hfoTheT’melghtr after .their .unique'·, nhus'c' of trie mpstLaöpularcuitural institutions iņihē. thei.hashtag SsUonomegiipd-desareo for. ibį videoi; cover ..of 'Michael. oackson's ;£фоат wond on YouTube contest and the pandrfeatu'ed. a-se.ecticn of Crimine«' became: a - YduTupe..· viral sensation B8 for a speca! playlist.· 3.rnub¡ciaós.hac.tne '012011. Snce tnen they nave eleased three chance to spend an afternoon togetheuw.itn tnę commercially successful feioumsi' gėneratįhg; band for a ¿am session, ; overl2 nn.iidn aib^m.'saes.wprldvvice -.

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- acn*s.nis. Poland" LliiKÏil film „romanesc.rar Q79 fete.veki ilIowęn 44783 View's •Tw n ' orothers .Larry and Laurent Bourgeois a Hungarian sum mer music 'es::·, Lhat.Öraws; Cinepup- is' an .online 'platform'.' dedica-ec to·’ Cezm is known for unconventional· approach - collectively known .as.LES TWINS - ,are AGC’.'GCÜ íarisTrçrn over’70, .co; -es.: eners, Romanan enema,. a project 'established py .tcrÂacds.nœ'c. /М)1.г!ж:ппс1Раг0 §P0öwn;c·.· intematenaty ' · known 'Mew 'Style Ηρ-Hop; ive-streaming 3~vouTube?F:e:fr -mg pands :®АУиа®гзфап)ап11пс1е1^шрЬ0огп01ип:савдд; who cari: can smp backwards. Cezik creates dancers.. òng.na,:y. fromp Sá' ce les; 'france. rsn-Qe i^ļļpi intşrnştipnşi po OcVtsçene- mompany, .¡ri; paŕtriershipýwitniGaíjgie ,ŢaiMr new songs from1 already eysting. ones and Wuh.ihe heip-oř Ÿq.uTube..ihey nave found an. to stars ci ,νοπα ana éeçtrantó r ito bung ito the audiences'not ’or,:/ 'films, ór- mixesinen-. in a entertanmg.way. bs viceos- enthusiastic fan.base fern around tne world as ime» folk, jazz, c'ués. Sitemat vę a-·' vveli knowm directors, but·’aso ..náependent nave proven nugely-.pepuiar..· many of which Theirvidep's are watened by millobsV; rass ca tunes F ; τ the te ...... praöuõagns mace py those-witna rea. passion getting-nmll'önsi'Of iyiéWs Heyis on YouTube thechagnęi has amasser c·’ ts videós ņ for film üutatuhebeginnidgOfmer careers1 âribeSGfeàï.'. . ·■■·’ ·. '.L 5ü"ó CQT-é frem outside of Hungary.' .1 3 A European community for social change

A European community for social change A European community for social change

YouTube empowers people and communities to make their voice heard and connect around common interests

As. the most vibrant online yideo community From awareness raising campaigns "tö fund in the World, YouTube empowers people and raising forcause, from European institutions to communities to make their voce heard and creators getting younger audiences interested connect around common .'interests. It is a in ' politics, yfróm' highly specialised lectures ünigüelyidiverse videÓ GÓiTimunity, featuring a to . educators making; science accessible disproportionate share of minorities.. ' to everyone, Europeans are. harnessing .the Opportunities offered by ŸouTube. -

1 Washington Post. In online video, minoritiesfind an audience. YouTubes online video content opens up countless possibilit ies for education and personal development. The breadth and educational value of creative w orks hosted on YouTube is considerable: from following lectures online to more surprising stories, such as that of javelin world- champion Julius Yego, who relied on YouTube to perfect his technique. European centres of education and excellence such as Oxford University, the College de France or Warsaw University disseminate knowledge and education across the world with YouTube. Other institutions and young creators focus on making science and education fun and accessible for different generations and audiences. A European community for social change

YouTube empowers individuals and organisations to extend the reach and impact of their message

Online video is a powerful tool for awareness EUROPEAN NONPROFITS AND CHARITIES raising and campaigns to extend the reach make themselves heard on YouTube. Non and impact of a message. YouTube empowers profit organisations and activism are among individuals and organisations - for example the fastest growing categories of content. The Youtube channels of the European the "Choose A Different Ending" campaign Through YouTube's Nonprofit program, these Parliament and of the European against gun and knife crime supported by the organisations have access to specific tools Commission have attracted London Police and the YouTube channels to connect with communities, including over 30 million views each of European Institutions to name just a few. technical support and training. They can Both the European Parliament and European create a 'donate' button allowing them to raise Commission's YouTube channel have funds directly from their YouTube channel, as attracted over 30 million views each. Oxfam UK does. Close to 3,000 organisations in Europe have joined YouTube's Nonprofit program organisations in Europe have joined YouTube's Nonprofit program 4GÇ GGÇ follower

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7 Ref. Ares(2018)1373424 - 13/03/2018

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Blue Blue Efficience est une start-up française de technologie innovante au service de la protection des oeuvres audiovisuelles.

fficience Mandaté par les ayants-droit, notre mission couvre : ■ la détection des mises à disposition non autorisées de leurs oeuvres sur internet, ■ la qualification des infractions aux droits d’auteur, в la prise en charge des procédures de retrait

La protection a deux pilliers : Protection contre le piratage des ■ les outils logiciels internes, fruits de notre recherche et développement, permettant la navigation automatisée sur internet pour la récolte des infractions, oeuvres sur internet ■ les lois qui régissent le droit d’auteur dans les différents territoires sur lesquels se portent nos actions, principalement la directive européenne et le DMCA américain.

Intervention de Thierry Chevillard, Directeur Général, à l'audition publique de la Commission des Affaires Juridiques du Parlement Européen le 29/11/16 2 La protection selon Blue Efficience

En aval du piratage 1/2 En aval du piratage 2/2

Récolte continue des possibles mises à disposition non autorisées des oeuvres : Qualification des infractions par vérification des contenus de manière logicielle ou * sur les plateformes User-Created Content (UCC), incluant les vidéos qui manuelle. passent au travers des mesures techniques de filtrage en amont par Procédure de retrait des mises à disposition non autorisées : empreinte, я par l'utilisation d'interfaces web de retrait rapide proposées par certains * sur les sites d’indexation dédiés au piratage, sous la forme de liens hébergeur tels que uploaded.net, 1fichier.com, nitroflare.com... hébergeurs permettant le téléchargement direct ou de lecteur Intégrés ■ par la création et l'envoi numérique de notifications aux hébergeurs, aux permettant le streaming, sites d’indexation, et le cas échéant à des prestataires techniques * sur les pages web indexées par les moteurs de recherche généralistes, intermédiaires de ľhébergeur; » sur les sites d'indexation dédiés au piratage via les réseaux peer-to-peer, ■ par l’intervention d’un cabinet d’avocat partenaire. * sur les réseaux sociaux.

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