From the summary at Full Text Reports:
Today, MPAA Chairman Senator Chris Dodd joined Representatives Howard Coble, Adam Schiff, Marsha Blackburn and Judy Chu on Capitol Hill to release the results of a new study that found that search engines play a significant role in introducing audiences to infringing movies and TV shows online. Infringing content is a TV show or movie that has been stolen and illegally distributed online without any compensation to the show or film’s owner.
…
The study found that search is a major gateway to the initial discovery of infringing content online, even in cases when the consumer was not looking for infringing content. 74% of consumers surveyed cited using a search engine as a navigational tool the first time they arrived at a site with infringing content. And the majority of searches (58%) that led to infringing content contained only general keywords — such as the titles of recent films or TV shows, or phrases related to watching films or TV online — and not specific keywords aimed at finding illegitimate content.
I rag on search engines fairly often about the quality of their results so in light of this report, I wanted to give them a shout out of: Well done!
They may not be good at the sophisticated content discovery that I find useful, but on the other hand, when sweat hogs are looking for entertainment, search content can fill the bill.
On the other hand, knowing that infringing content can be found may be good for PR purposes but not much more. Search results don’t capture (read identify) enough subjects to enable the mining of patterns of infringement and other data analysis relevant to opposing to infringement.
Infringing content is easy to find so the business case for topic maps lies with content providers. Who need more detail (read subjects and associations) than a search engine can provide.
New Study Finds Search Engines Play Critical Role in Introducing Audiences To Infringing Content Online (PDF of the news release)
Update: Understanding the Role of Search in Online Piracy. The full report. Additional detail but no links to the data.