Google's new copyright-policing strategy has won the hearts of copyright advocates such as the MPAA and the RIAA, but is also sparking some controversy among those lobbying for keeping the Internet free. It seems, however, that Google's new policy will not affect YouTube, although the site has been known as a popular venue for illegally posted copyrighted material.

On Friday, Aug. 10, Google announced that its search algorithm will now take into account the amount of DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) removal notices a Web site has received. Basically, if a site has a lot of "valid copyright removal notices" against it, Google will downrank it in its search results.

"We will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site," the search giant announced on Friday. "Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results."

According to a new report from Search Engine Land, however, YouTube will not be affected by these changes. While flagging allegedly illegal content on most sites involves using an online process on a page labeled "Removing Content from Google," flagging content on YouTube involves using the site's own "Copyright Center." As far as search engine ranking is concerned, Google will only take into account the requests made through the Removing Content page, not through YouTube's Copyright Center.

These DMCA take-down notices are used to warn a Web site that copyrighted material is being infringed somewhere on the site, and the copyright owner would like that material removed. "Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law," explained Google. "So while this new signal will influence the ranking of some search results, we won't be removing any pages from search results unless we receive a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner."

On the other hand, while the explanation makes sense and Google insisted it has no intention of becoming a copyright cop, one can't help but wonder whether YouTube is getting some sort of preferential treatment. In fact, Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan asked Google to comment on the situation, but was told that YouTube is not any special treatment.

"We're treating YouTube like any other site in search rankings," Google told the site. "That said, we don't expect this change to demote results for popular user-generated content sites."