Google refuses to remove The Pirate Bay’s homepage from its search results

Google Discards DMCA Takedown Requests Against The Pirate Bay

The past couple of years have not been good for torrents websites, as popular websites like KickassTorrents,  Torrentz.eu and TorrentHound have shut down owing to legal pressure from various media industries. However, The Pirate Bay, the web’s highest-profile source of TV shows, movies, and music, has continued to hold its fort despite many attempts by the copyright holders to remove the site.

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In order to discourage pirate sites, even Google, the popular search giant, has been asked time and again to remove links from its search results that lead to the pirate sites. While Google has processed a huge number of takedown requests received for removal of pirate sites, this time around the search giant has categorically refused to remove TPB’s homepage from its search results, as it is not infringing.

According to Google, TPB’s homepage simply contains the iconic pirate ship logo, a search box, as well as some other links. The Pirate Bay does not promote piracy directly or mentions that copyright infringing content is available on the website, which warrants a ‘takedown’.

For those unaware, The Pirate Bay (TPB) has long been a hindrance for copyright holders. Over the years, The Pirate Bay’s homepage has been targeted more than 70 times. This year alone, Google received at least 15 separate takedown notices to remove ThePirateBay.org from its index, which the search engine company has ignored.

According to Digimarc, one of the largest anti-piracy companies, who reports on behalf of book publishers such as Penguin Random House, Kensington Publishing, and Recorded Books, said they are trying not only to get the e-books removed from the Torrent site but also blacklist it completely.

Lumen team, which maintains an archive of all the DMCA notices Google search receives, said the most recent takedown notice was sent to Google a few days ago accusing TPB’s homepage of hosting or linking to an infringing copy of “Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama.” A similar notice sent a few days earlier blamed the same page of linking to the French version of Stephen King’s The Running Man.

Despite the high number of takedown requests Google receives to remove TPB’s homepage from its index, ThePirateBay.org continues to remain listed on its search results.

Although Google has accidentally removed The Pirate Bay’s homepage in the past, the company back then clarified that it was a mistake on their part and the move was reverted.

A Google spokesperson at that time had said, “Google received a (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take-down request that erroneously listed thepiratebay.org, and as a result, this URL was accidentally removed from the Google search index. We are now correcting the removal, and you can expect to see thepiratebay.org back in Google search results this afternoon.”

Source: TorrentFreak

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