Netflix and amazon
The entire DMCA takedown process is now automated, as law firms can send millions of takedown requests a day to Google and other search engines. A takedown request allows a search engine to remove infringing URLs. Thus, users cannot access the relevant pirated content.
While this is the case in theory, things are more complicated in practice. Along with URLs that clearly point to illegal sites and pirated content, lawyers can often submit removal requests for perfectly legitimate websites. That’s exactly what happened in recent lawsuits involving Netflix, Amazon, and streaming search engine Reelgood.
Reelgood is a website that provides a convenient way for users to search for content by allowing users to browse and search movies and TV shows from over 150 different services in the US and UK.
As reported by TorrentFreakMarketly, the anti-piracy company that deals with takedown requests for many publishers, recently filed two new copyright complaints to Google. The first complaint is on behalf of Netflix, the second on behalf of Amazon.
While most of the complaints target unlicensed streaming sites, there are also two Reelgood URLs among the complaints. Google removed URLs that apparently violated the DMCA, so a web search on two (legal) links won’t show any results. As highlighted in Mountain View’s own transparency report, the reelgood.com domain has been the target of takedown requests from Netflix, Amazon, and other leading copyright holders over the past few years.
When it comes to searching for content in the increasingly complex (and expensive) publishing industry, Reelgood was one of the few legal alternatives on the market.
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