Search engine companies will ban links published by major torrent hubs

Starting from June 1st search engine companies will block queries to links to pirated content, including films, TV shows, and copyright-protected content.

It will be even more difficult to search for torrents of ExtraTorrent, KickassTorrents, The Pirate Bay and equivalent services.

In the past copyright holders accused the search engine companies of doing too little to ban infringing links.

There have even been rumors that the new legislation could force search engine companies adopting drastic measures on tackling piracy.

Starting from June 1st, the major search engine will block any queries searching for specific pirated torrent files.

It will be not possible to find links to pirated content, including films, games, TV shows, music and copyright-protected content. The search engine companies have joined the efforts in the fight against online piracy.

The UK’s Intellectual Property Office is working with search engine companies and entertainment firms to reach an agreement to adopt a series of measured to tackle the piracy.

“Google and other search companies are close to striking a voluntary agreement with entertainment companies to tackle the appearance of infringing content links in search results.” reads a blog post published by TorrentFreak. “Following roundtable discussions chaired by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office, all parties have agreed that the code should take effect by June 1, 2017.”

The UK government has played a crucial role in reaching an agreement between the search engine giants and entertainment firms, it seems that the parties are “extremely close” to sign an agreement.

“The search engines involved in this work have been very co-operative, making changes to their algorithms and processes, but also working bilaterally with creative industry representatives to explore the options for new interventions, and how existing processes might be streamlined,” said the parliamentary Baroness Buscombe.

“I understand that all parties are keen to finalize and sign up to the voluntary agreement, and so we believe there is no need to take a legislative power at this time.”

“All parties have also agreed that the code should take effect, and the targets in it be reached, by 1 June this year,” Baroness added.

It will be very interesting to see how such kind of agreement reached in the UK could be effective overseas.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – search engine companies, piracy)