Interesting Find... but this has nothing to do with Google protecting your music or not...

The search suggestions that pop-up are just the most common searches with that keyword in it.

"Paul McCartney zip" obviously just isn't one of the most searches terms.

wrong.

Google actively scrubs AutoComplete or at least claims to. Obviously not well.

The unspoken truth, what companies like Google and Spotify don't want to tell their investors and their stockholders.

We might not be able to control the cost of content.....forever.  

As brilliant as we are, the one thing we can't do better than others is write a great song, master an instrument, produce movies that inspire the world, write the Harry Potter Books.

What is the value of a blank, retinal display?  How many people would watch YouTube if there were just cat and wedding videos? How many people would listen to Spotify if they didn't have U2, Springsteen, Beatles, etc.?

So I say, not so fast with your dreams of world domination and billion dollar payouts; great creative work is not digital road kill.

A large proportion of Google's income comes from the advertising on pirate sites. Google profits from advertising using others creative content to draw traffic.

Google directly helped promote pirate sites such The Pirate Bay by putting them at the top of the list of “Hot Searches”.

If you use tools to track every ad and every ad network that places the ad on these pirate sites there is ample evidence that Google is feeding millions of ads to these pirate sites.

Google is pumping Millions $$ into anti-copyright lobbying.

Google's Piracy Liability

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcleland/2011/11/09/googles-piracy-liability/

Google and Facebook are using a controversial legal doctrine to channel money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and other groups that share their hostility to online copyright enforcement.

Google and Facebook's new tactic in the tech wars

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/30/google-and-facebooks-new-tactic-in-the-tech-wars/

Web giants bag former US gov advisor to head up lobbying group

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/26/internet_association_lobbying_group/

The Fat Cat Internet Defense League

http://www.jeremynicholl.com/blog/2012/07/23/the-fat-cat-internet-defense-league/

@ The Truth Teller

Thanks. "The truth shall make you free"

Google operates the way it does because the LAW allows them.

MPAA, RIAA and all other copyright holders that have their content illegally distributed online need to change the law, not attack individuals or businesses that exploit the law.

doing a search for my band's name (no .zip or any other keywords) brings up a 7-album discography one-time download on the first page,  and there's pretty much nothing we can do about it.

Search result in order, first page:

Band URL
Myspace
Facebook
Last.fm
Youtube Video
Youtube Video 
Youtube Video 
Discogs.com
Pirate Bay
Amazon 

I am sure you agree that a company should be judged on their actions and deeds.

Google not only exploits the law, they also sail very close to breaking the law see:

Video by a fired Google whistleblower about the extraordinary secrecy surrounding Google's digitization factory at a secret building in the Googleplex.

http://vimeo.com/15852288

Google is so secretive because what they're doing could be illegal and, in fact, a criminal offense. Google hasn't been charged because the FBI takes the position that all infringement should be litigated in civil court first.

And it's hard to forget that Google paid a $500,000,000 fine to the United States U.S. Department of Justice fine to avoid being indicted after a years-long grand jury investigation

http://musictechpolicy.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/google-agreement.pdf

As I pointed out they are massively funding along with their internet friends anti-copyright groups, campaigns and legislation.

The result is that creators and the music industry are up against massively funded lobbying and massively funded "grass-roots" campaigning by effectively the main actors on the internet.

As Andrew Orlowski at The Register says:

 "The range and depth of global lobbying undertaken by Google is now so formidable, it may be more accurate to describe the company as a political organisation with a legacy tech business attached."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/23/google_lobby_why/

On BBC Two Newsnight program Google tried to convince everyone that it was genuinely 'anti-piracy'. In MusicWeeks informal poll  82% say they don't believe them.

http://www.musicweek.com/news/read/is-google-genuinely-anti-piracy/051064

& google is supposed to be world wide law enforcement that is intimately acquainted with every obscure artist & publisher in the world, they should automatically know which of the billions of files online are infringment & in which countries, & automatically block them.

Have they been served with a notice? Has hulkshare been served with a notice, is the content registered with the free service Audible Magic for automatic protection?

Have you even thought about the repercussions of wrongful blocking if google was to try & pre-empt every possible notice, & what that could mean to artists struggling for recognition who are deliberately circulating their work, & what that could mean for any publishers of any material, & the hosts they use.

It seems you are suggesting that google should only show results that they have compeltely verified, they should exclude all pages until or unless they are notified to be, or determined, legitimate, that the world wide web should become a police state, everyone is guilty until proven innocent.

You could not even publish this article without first passing checks to be sure you had not stolen it, for fear your site would be blocked by google.

It's easy to cherry pick examples & shout from your soapbox whislt offering no solutions, but it's not meaingful nor helpful to anyone or anything, except your own traffic.

Reality Bytes, I agree the headline is not appropriate.

It's not Google's role to block content but... A more appropriate headline would be:

Is Google Profiting From Your Content?

Pirates, pirate music to make money. The money comes from advertising. Many of the sites use ad networks and in particular Google's ad networks.

Using Google's ad networks ensures good placement in Google's search results. Google makes money, the pirate site makes money.

What is interesting is that if the Pirates could not make money through the ads they would wither and die.

But somehow if you launch a site that Google deems inappropriate say a child pornography site, they won't allow you to place Google ads on your site. But launch say a pirate music site - no problem you can place Google ads.

If Google is serious about helping they need to cut off the money supply from advertising to these music pirate sites. But will they?

It would probably half Google's income.

Only a court of law can decide copyright infringement. It's not Google's job.

I don't see this as consumers saying "I want to have this record for free." I see this as consumers saying "I want this record here and now, and this is the easiest way to do just that." 

Once paid is more convenient than free, "SBTRKT .zip" won't be in the top 100 "SBTRKT" searches, and you'll all be left wondering why so few artists were early adopters of good innovative tech.

"I don't see this as consumers saying "I want to have this record for free.""

Your right, it's the the Tech industry saying "How do we ensure the greatest number of eyeballs to our adverts, so we make maximum dollars" Answer: Use content that attracts visitors - Free music, movies etc.,

Then mount a campaigns purportedly about about defending free-speech to continue your profiteering off of others creative works.