Google Removes Pirate Bay Frontpage From Search Results

Google Removes Pirate Bay Frontpage From Search Results(torrentfreak.com)

32 points by mindplunge 16 years ago | 20 comments

tumult 16 years ago |

Please direct your hate towards anyone in Congress in 1998, when the DMCA was passed unanimously.

heyadayo 16 years ago | |

The DMCA is surprisingly fair and well balanced.

- The content owner may sent a counter-notification, and the Online Service Provider must put the content back up with two weeks, or it may be held liable for monetary damages.

- The original DMCA notice issuer must then actually sue the content owner to actually remove the content

- If the issuer makes a false claim, and it can be shown that they knew it was false, then they can be held liable for significant fines under the DMCA.

The only downside I see is that an average Joe doesn't know how this works and can easily have their content removed for ten days or longer. For breaking news and the like, ten days on the internet can be an eternity. But usually its not a problem.

I'm curious, how would you address this problem better?

nathos 16 years ago | | |

Criminalizing all circumvention of access control is "fair and well balanced"? Even if the circumvention does not result in the infringement of copyright?

The DMCA enabled the broken, DRM-ridden media landscape we enjoy today.

eli 16 years ago | | |

There's little to stop copyright holders from using the takedown provision in bad faith. Sure, they have to swear they believe the content is infringing... but how can anyone disprove that? And there are plenty of companies that seem to truly believe that there's basically no fair use of their content whatsoever.

You also forgot to mention that although the provider is supposed to restore the content within 14, they're also not allowed to do so any earlier than 10 business days. They have to give the copyright holder time to consider if they want to bring a lawsuit. So if I don't like, say, a negative book review you wrote, I can knock it offline for minimum two weeks with a single spurious letter.

There are many examples of copyright holders using the DMCA takedown in bad faith to silence critics.

scythe 16 years ago | | |

I take issue with "and it can be shown that they knew it was false". If you're going to force a takedown of someone else's content, it's your responsibility to be entirely sure.

alecco 16 years ago | | |

> The DMCA is surprisingly fair and well balanced.

Right. Tell that to Dimitry Skylarov.

igorgue 16 years ago | |

and Congress in 2009 for not noticing that this thing is broken

logicalmind 16 years ago | | |

And constituents in 2010 who will not care about their congress-person's stance on this issue when it is time to vote.

mindplunge 16 years ago |

Update:

Google said on Friday that an error caused the search engine to remove The Pirate Bay from its search pages.

"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," Google said in a statement. "We are now correcting the removal, and you can expect to see Thepiratebay.org back in Google search results this afternoon."

Later, Google updated it's statement: "The removal appears to be an internal error and not part of a DMCA request."

Separately, The Pirate Bay's site appeared down Friday afternoon at 1:15 p.m. PT, at least in many U.S. areas.

mynameishere 16 years ago |

Maybe they just want people to use this instead:

http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=003849996876419856805:erhh...

rms 16 years ago |

I could certainly understand the justification for removing individual torrents, maybe even the broad category of pornography, but why the front page?

yason 16 years ago | |

What's wrong with pornography?

rms 16 years ago | | |

Nothing. I was assuming that 100% of the pornography is copyright infringing and so the pornographer's union was correct in trying to DMCA it away, but I guess it is possible that there is CC licensed amateur pornography out there.

kierank 16 years ago |

Hopefully experts-exchange will be added to that list...

jacquesm 16 years ago | |

And anything referring to 'sedo'.

ryne 16 years ago |

I must be uninformed about something but why is Pirate Bay getting all the flack from the DMCA; having their servers raided, going to court, this. Aren't there a dozen other torrent indexers to persecute?

wmf 16 years ago |

Update: As usual, this "story" was a mistake that was corrected within hours. Yet another case where a 24-hour delay would have helped.

stcredzero 16 years ago |

Perhaps an opportunity for Bing to make inroads?

immad 16 years ago | |

Google still finds http://thepiratebay.org/browse

But Bing wins with the front page: http://www.bing.com/search?q=pirate+bay&go=&form=QBL...

On a side note: The way bing shows the first result it made it feel like an ad and I skipped it the first time.

Also: The related search results in Bing are quite useful.