Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), have agreed to crackdown against illegal downloading, according to a report from The Telegraph.
Under the agreement with the UK government, the search engine operators will not show links to pirated films and music on the first page in their search engines in the UK.
Google operates Google.com, while Microsoft runs Bing.
The search engines need to have collaborative “relationships with our world leading creative industries,” according to Jo Johnson, the minister for universities, science, research, and innovation. “It is essential that [consumers] are presented with links to legitimate websites and services, not provided with links to pirate sites,” the minister was quoted as saying by Telegraph.
Under a new voluntary code, Google and Microsoft will demote websites that have repeatedly been served with copyright infringement notices. As a result, they will not appear on the first page for common searches. Moreover, the search engines’ autocomplete functions will also remove terms that may lead to pirate websites, according to the report.
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) will monitor the compliance with the code. In the summer, the watchdog could recommend further action by the Business Secretary Greg Clark, potentially triggering legislation that imposes fines and other sanctions, the newspaper reported.
The code is not a silver bullet for copyright holders, but still, it is important, according to Geoff Taylor, chief executive of BPI, which represents record labels.
“We have long campaigned for search engines to do more to ensure fans are directed to legal sources for music or other entertainment. There is much work still to do to achieve this. The Code will not be a silver bullet fix, but it will mean that illegal sites are demoted more quickly from search results and that fans searching for music are more likely to find a fair site,” Taylor said, Telegraph reported.