(credit: INXS, Meditate)
Google and Microsoft’s Bing have agreed to crack down on piracy sites in the UK, after years of wrangling with film and music rights holders.
The tech giants have inked a voluntary code of practice with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Motion Picture Association, following a series of talks overseen by the UK’s copyright watchdog and steered by the department for culture, media, and sport.
On Monday, the Intellectual Property Office described it as a “landmark agreement” in which Google and Bing have vowed to reduce “the visibility of infringing content in search results by 1 June 2017.” It means that repeat offenders who post pirated material online will see their sites drop off the first page of Google and Bing, when film and music fans search for content. Instead, they will apparently be shepherded towards legit sites.
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Source: Ars Technica – Google and Microsoft agree to demote piracy search results in the UK