Warner Bros. asks that its own sites be removed from Google
In an attempt to crack down on piracy, Warner Bros. inadvertently submits removal requests of its own URLs.
Warner Bros. is in the business of keeping its content from being pirated, and in the past has been working on ways to accomplish just that.
The studio has taken to Google in the past to see this lofty goal through, alleging that the search engine makes it far too simple for users to seek out and obtain pirated content. In the past, Warner Bros. has even asked that Google remove destinations for torrent fans like The Pirate Bay from its search results.
Now, Warner Bros. is taking matters into its own hands by collecting pirated content and its corresponding URLs to report to Google while requesting that it gets de-indexed. However, it looks like the studio has also flagged its own URLs for censorship via anti-piracy partner Vobile.
For example, screenshots from DMCA notices for both The Dark Knight and The Matrix note official publicity URLs for both movies located at Warnerbros.com. Recently, a DMCA takedown notice for the movie The Lucky One was submitted with yet another Warnerbros.com URL. It's happening again and again, which only places the spotlight on the problem with automating takedowns. Warner Bros. is essentially making it more difficult for fans to visit pages related to its properties and, in some cases, purchase them according to Amazon URLs on the same notices.
Google decided to leave the URLs up, but it's possible that may not be the case going forward forever. It looks like Warner Bros. will have to be more discerning in the future when it comes to combating piracy through means it deems necessary.
