Some music rightsholders could have been forgiven last night for dancing on their chairs at the sight of headlines like “Google Adds Grooveshark to its Piracy Search Filter”. It’s not quite what they might have hoped, however. Grooveshark *isn’t* being filtered out of Google’s search results. Instead, it’s been added to the blacklist of terms for Google’s Instant and Autocomplete features, meaning that Grooveshark won’t be recommended as a search term when users start typing. To pluck one example out of thin air, if you type ‘atoms for peace groo’ into Google, you won’t get any suggestions to complete the search term with ‘veshark’ or links to the band’s albums on the controversial streaming service. TorrentFreak claims that the block may actually have come in at the end of April, with Google’s only public statement being this: “Our algorithms prevent terms closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete.” The move may lead to more pressure from rightsholders on Google to also downgrade Grooveshark in its main search results, if it’s now accepted that the site is “closely associated with piracy”.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…