Understanding the Roleof Search in OnlinePiracy
Prepared by Millward Brown Digital or the MPAA
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Introduction
The Motion Picture Association o America (MPAA) commissioned Compete to assess the role search playsin how US and UK consumers nd copyright inringing copies o TV and lm content on the internet. Toaccomplish the goal o the study, Compete used its online consumer panel to investigate how search isused in the discovery and navigational journey to these inringing content les located across the web.Compete also analyzed whether the algorithm change implemented by Google in August 2012, whichincorporated copyright notice levels into its search engine ranking, caused any change in the role thatsearch plays in access to copyright inringing content. The analysis included in this report is based on USand UK consumer data.
Understanding the Role of Search in Online Piracy
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Executive Summary
The study identies that:• Overall, search engines infuenced 20% o the sessions in which consumers accessed inringing TV orlm content online between 2010 and 2012.
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• Search is an important resource or consumers when they seek new content online, especially orthe rst time. 74% o consumers surveyed cited using a search engine as either a discovery ornavigational tool in their initial viewing sessions on domains with inringing content.• Consumers who view inringing TV or lm content or the rst time online are more than twice as likelyto use a search engine in their navigation path as repeat visitors.• The majority o search queries that lead to consumers viewing inringing lm or TV content do notcontain keywords that indicate specic intent to view this content illegally. 58% o queries thatconsumers use prior to viewing inringing content contain generic or title-specic keywords only,indicating that consumers who may not explicitly intend to watch the content illegally ultimately do soonline. Additionally, searchers are more likely to rely on generic or title-specic keywords in their rstvisit than on subsequent visits.• For the inringing lm and TV content URLs measured, the largest share o search queries that lead tothese URLs (82%) came rom the largest search engine, Google.• The share o reerral trac rom Google to sites included in the Google Transparency Report remainedfat in the three months ollowing the implementation o Google’s “signal demotion” algorithm in August2012.
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Methodological detail: Both the
relevance
and
recency
of search queries were used to calculate this figure, versus solely attributing influence to the domains that aconsumer visited immediately prior to viewing infringing content. This research methodology was used because consumer navigation to infringing content is complexand could include multiple search queries and visits to infringing websites before a user is able to find a working URL. Therefore direct referrals do not fully reflectconsumers’ navigation paths.
Understanding the Role of Search in Online Piracy
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