RIAA stamps its feet, demands Google do more to stop piracy

The Recording Industry Association of America is not easy to please. The Verge reports that the RIAA is once again bashing Google (GOOG) over its allegedly half-hearted efforts to combat online piracy by claiming that it has “found no evidence that Google’s policy has had a demonstrable impact on demoting sites with large amounts of piracy.” Google announced this past summer that it would start demoting websites that were repeatedly flagged for copyright violations and the company is reportedly in talks with major credit card companies to cut off funds to websites frequently accused of piracy. But the RIAA has found that “well-known, authorized download sites, such as iTunes, Amazon and eMusic” aren’t being featured prominently enough in Google searches for songs. The bottom line, says the RIAA, is that “whatever Google has done to its search algorithms to change the ranking of infringing sites, it doesn’t appear to be working.”