Warner Bros, NBC Universal ask Google to censor Mega

In a poor attempt to combat piracy, a couple of Hollywood studios have filed DMCA takedown notices asking Google to censor Kim Dotcom’s file sharing service, Mega. As per a report by TorrentFreak , Warner Bros. and NBC Universal have both asked Google to take down Mega’s homepage ( www.mega.co.nz ) from its search index, citing copyright infringement. 

The complaint by Warner Bros. is concerning its film Gangster Squad, while NBC Universal’s is regarding the film Mama. However, the takedown notices don’t really make sense. Both the companies’ notices state that Mega’s homepage infringes copyright, but the thing is, there is no real content on the site’s homepage. All you can do is register, and upload and share your files, but the site doesn’t link or host to any content directly via its homepage. 

Some people really want this site to go down

TorrentFreak managed to get hold of Dotcom himself, who is obviously not too pleased about the development. He said, “The Warner Bros. and NBC Universal requests to Google are censoring our entire homepage. This is in line with the unreasonable content industry behavior we have experienced for years.”

Dotcom also told TorrentFreak that 20 percent of all the takedown notices Megaupload used to receive were erroneous, mostly due to being automated. “During the Megaupload days over 20 percent of all takedown notices were bogus. We analysed big samples of notices and most were automated keyword based takedowns that affected a lot of legitimate files. The abuse of the takedown system is so severe that no service provider can rely on takedown notices for a fair repeat infringer policy.”

It seems these notices were also sent by an automated process, just like the majority of all the DMCA notices issued. Thankfully, Google has identified the mistake and has refused to remove Mega from its search indexes. However, the search giant receives a lot of takedown notices everyday and can’t be expected to catch all erroneous complaints. Let’s just hope the company stays as sharp the next time it receives such a notice.