MPAA Interim Chief “Encouraged” By Google’s Efforts to Curb Online Piracy

The acting chief of the Motion Picture Association of America on Thursday said that he was “encouraged” by Google’s recent announcement about technical changes it is making to stifle online piracy.

“We are encouraged by Google’s recognition of the responsibility of all participants in the online world to help combat online content theft,” said the MPAA’s Bob Pisano in a press statement. “We look forward to Google’s implementation of its announced reforms.”

He added: “We also look forward to working with Google to address other important issues, including Google’s listings and rankings of notorious pirate sites as places to go to get movies that are still only in the cinema and other illegal content.”

Google’s General Counsel Kent Walker promised in a blog post Thursday that the company would respond to copyright infringement take-down notices within 24 hours — but only for those who act “responsibly.” He also pledged that the company would make it easier for those who think they’ve been acted against unfairly to file counter-notices.

The company also promised to block words that are frequently used to find pirated content from showing up in Autocomplete, its service that attempts to make your searches faster by guessing and filling out your search request in its search box based on a few keystrokes (No word on whether BitTorrent would be part of that list.)

Google also promised to beef up its Adsense anti-piracy review so that ads don’t appear on pirate sites, and to make “authorized preview content more accessible on the internet.”