Twitter Copyright Complaints Up 76% Since Last Report

Following in the footsteps of Google, Twitter now regularly publishes is own transparency report. According to the company, copyright takedown requests are up 76% on the final six month period of 2012.

twitterlogoThe decision by Google to publish a transparency report is an extremely welcome development.

The publication of this information will not only help us understand what is happening on the web today from a copyright perspective, but usher in a more open environment in which big companies – and smaller ones – can be held publicly accountable for their actions.

As recently reported, this year Google will receive a couple of hundred million takedown requests from rightsholders. From Twitter’s own report published yesterday, we can see that the short-messaging company has a dramatically smaller burden in comparison.

Twitter says that between January 1 and June 30 this year it received just 5,753 copyright takedown notices, a 76% increase on the previous six month period.

In all the notices affected a total of 22,399 Twitter accounts and led to the removal of 18,413 tweets and 3,993 items of media such as background images and photos.

Interestingly, only 61% of the copyright notices received by Twitter led to material being removed. The company also received just six counter notices, all of which resulted in content being restored.