Anti-piracy software may not be a problem for pirates, but this could be one. Copyright holders have been continuously asking Google to take down pirate links, filing a number of DMCA takedown requests.
In Google’s Transparency Report regarding copyrights, the company reported that it has been asked to remove over 3 billion infringing search results. The frequency of these reports increases every day, and roughly 3 million piracy related links are being reported on a daily basis.
BPI, a major UK music industry group, who accounts for 10% of the all DMCA takedown requests on Google talks about how much effort it takes to combat piracy. “This 3 billion figure shows how hard the creative sector has to work to police its content online and how much time and resource this takes. The BPI is the world’s largest remover of illegal music links from Google, one third of which are on behalf of independent record labels,” Geoff Taylor, BPI’s Chief Executive said to TorrentFreak.
Additionally, BPI is also in partnership with Google and Bing to demote pirated content more effectively. Geoff Taylor said, “We now have a voluntary code of practice in place in the UK, facilitated by Government, that requires Google and Bing to work together with the BPI and other creator organizations to develop lasting solutions to the problem of illegal sites gaining popularity in search listings.”
While it’s hard to say how many of these takedown requests are related to games, both Google and ISPs have become more stringent in blocking piracy related sites on the internet. The message “This website/URL has been blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecommunications and/or Courts of India” is a lot more common than it used to be a few years ago. Agreed, VPNs help to circumvent these to some extent, but if the sites start getting removed altogether, pirates may have to resort to other measures soon.
Do you think these takedowns will be effective against piracy of games, music and movies? Let us know your opinions in the comments.
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