RIAA urges Google to beef up its piracy controls

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is urging Google to make some changes to their copyright infringement report system.

In a blog post, the RIAA bemoans Google's polices dealing with copyright infringement takedown requests. The group is asking for an increased limit to the amount of requests they can send in and an increase in the amount of links Google takes down each day.

The post comes following last week's Google transparency report showing who requests takedowns each month.

"Clearly the current process is not working. Google is routinely directing people to unlawful sources of content," said RIAA's executive vice president of anti-piracy Brad Buckles.

"If Google truly doesn't want its search results directing people to materials that violate copyright laws, more should be done to address this problem."

One of the RIAA's biggest complaints is the artifical limit on complaints a copyright holder can make. It accused Google of deliberately limiting the number of site take down requests copyright holders can submit.

Google, meanwhile, says the artificial limit is a technical issue and not a purposeful act.

"We have never imposed any limit on the number of DMCA notices that a copyright owner or reporting organisation may send us, although we do have some technical safeguards in our trusted partner programme as a safeguard against accidental flooding of the system," a Google spokesperson told V3.

The RIAA's complaints come following a Google transparency report last week that showed who and how many copyright complaints Google gets each month. Google reported that it received as many as 250,000 take down requests each week. Both Microsoft and BPI were listed as the two biggest copyright infringement reporters.