Music companies are pleased with what Google is doing to fight online content theft but think it could be doing more.
Steven Marks, executive vice president and general counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents major music companies, published an entry to its Music Notes Blog, reacting to a Google progress report on its own efforts to combat content theft online.
The RIAA overall is pleased with Google’s efforts, including developing tools that enable faster submission of takedown requests and faster takedowns of questionable sites, but says there is a lot more it could be doing.
For instance, the RIAA points out Google ad services continue to service illegal sites offering unauthorized music in spite of their requests otherwise. Google’s Blogger tool also is frequently used for the posting of links to similar sites. And while the search giant has been quick to take down the offending sites, they have no method of punishing repeat offenders.
There are also complaints of widely available and popular apps on the Android market that “harvest” links to unauthorized files located across the Internet.
