Fans of experimental, forward thinking, non commercial/avant garde music will rejoice at the news that after years of pressure Google, as the worlds most popular search engine has finally decided to respect and help support artists rights by downgrading search results for sites perceived to be engaging in or profiting from piracy. This means that sites offering pirated material will no longer be appearing on the first pages of search results, this means sites that offer legal methods to obtain the music ‘should’ receive higher rankings. How will they do this?? They’ve adjusted their algorithms to take into account the number of DMCA ‘takedown’ notices a site receives and repeat offenders are automatically penalised.

This means that artists who ‘push the envelope’ and take chances with their music may actually be able to expect some form of payment for their work at some point and therefore are enabled to continue forging ahead with less obvious/commercial sounds. Could this be the beginning of a new ‘golden age’ for digital content??… Doubtful, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction!