Piracy Groups Want Google To Remove The Whole Site After Valid DMCA Filings

Google writes a letter to the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator opposing whole-site removal over DMCA complaints.

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TorrentFreak reports Google is opposing calls from piracy groups such as MPAA and RIAA to remove the whole site from the search results over copyright infringements.

Google has a DMCA content removal procedure, where Google will take down search results linking to specific pages with copyright infringements. But the groups want Google to not just take down the specific page(s) in question but the whole site. Google says they don’t think that is a good idea.

Google said in their response, “Unfortunately, whole-site removal is ineffective and can easily result in censorship of lawful material.” “Whole-site removal would simply drive piracy to new domains, legitimate sites, and social networks,” Google added.

The letter Google sent in will be taken into consideration by Intellectual Property Czar Daniel Marti, reports TorrentFreak. The decision is expected to release the 2016–2019 Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement during the months to come.

Google also has an algorithm that targets piracy and sites with massive DMCA claims against them; we call it the Google Pirate Update.

Here is the letter:

TorrentFreak Google Comment — Development of the Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement… by torrentfreak


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Barry Schwartz
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Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

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