(US) Homeland Security recently seized Torrent-Finder.com, but the curious thing is that Torrent-Finder.com wasn’t a torrent site. Apparently it didn’t itself contain any illegal files. What it did was act as a search engine for torrent sites.
As the article points out, what Torrent-Finder did is what Google does. So the question becomes will Google heed the shot across their bow and start banning torrent sites from their SERPs? It would be a wonderful thing if they did…
that would be nice! But honestly, there is a HUGE difference in a site that is specifically setup to help you find illegal torrent downloads, vs one that includes links to pretty much every web site out there.
Yes and no… I wouldn’t be surprised if Google does 10,000 times more of it than Torrent-Finder ever did. Sure, they’re not going to seize Google.com over it, but there need to be some real penalties for it - in order to drive home the fact that Google is an accessory to an illegal act. If they can write special rules for kiddie porn, they can write special rules for egregious copyright infringement.
A Web site is in danger of having its domain seized (or having U.S. Internet providers encounter a sudden case of amnesia when their customers try to visit it) if it is “primarily designed” and “has no demonstrable, commercially significant purpose or use other than” offering or providing access to unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Counterfeit trademarks–that’s why Chanel, Nike, Tiffany, and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton also signed the letter–are also included.
The wording is significant. Because the phrase “providing access” appears, that would include specialty search engines including The Pirate Bay that provide links to copyrighted works, even if the actual files are available through BitTorrent elsewhere.
A Web site is in danger of having its domain seized (or having U.S. Internet providers encounter a sudden case of amnesia when their customers try to visit it) if it is “primarily designed” and “has no demonstrable, commercially significant purpose or use other than” offering or providing access to unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Counterfeit trademarks–that’s why Chanel, Nike, Tiffany, and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton also signed the letter–are also included.
