Google is about to make it difficult to find illegal torrent sites with the company voluntarily removing sites from its search results.
The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the tech giant made an agreement to help stop torrenting by removing sites blocked by Australian internet service providers from their search results.
This will essentially mean Australian rights holders won’t be able to take Google to court.
The publication reports that 832 sites had been blocked by Google so far.
In 2015, laws were put in place where copyright holders could force ISPs to block pirate websites.
Google has now agreed to ‘de-index’ these sites when they’re blocked by ISPs.
Village Roadshow chief executive Graham Burke told the SMH, “This means we, as content owners, will be able to avoid the expense, effort, time and uncertainty of going to court.”
“We’ve gone from being enemies to being allies … because I believe Google is doing the right thing by Australians.”
“[The] pirates’ business model is robbing and scamming people, they have sophisticated ways to take your information. Google has come down on the side that is right.”
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield added, “The norms and laws that apply in the physical world should also apply in the online world. Copyright law is no exception.”
A Google spokeswoman also spoke to the SMH and said the search platform “supports effective industry-led measures to fight piracy, and we invest significantly in the technology, tools and resources that prevent copyright infringement on our platforms”.