Hbo demands takedown of “pirated” game of thrones trailers

HBO is cracking down on unauthorized copies of Game of Thrones that have appeared online over the past weeks. The TV-network has sent Google several takedown requests to remove thousands of links from its search engine. Interestingly enough, the requests also list the popular show's official trailers.

Game of Thrones is without a doubt the most pirated TV-show on the Internet.

The popular series entered its fourth season early April and broke the record of most people sharing a pirated copy simultaneously. While several people connected to Game of Thrones have noted that piracy might actually benefit the show, HBO executives are clamping down on widespread piracy nonetheless.

Over the past few weeks the TV-network has sent dozens of takedown requests to Google, listing thousands of allegedly pirated copies of their work. Many of these are links to torrent sites and streaming portals where recent episodes can be downloaded for free.

With these takedown requests HBO hopes to make it harder for people to find unauthorized copies. However, a careful inspection of the notices by TorrentFreak reveals that promotional material such as trailers are also being censored.

Unfortunately for HBO, Google happily processed these requests and removed the “infringing” trailers from their search results. As can be seen below, a search for “Game of Thrones trailer torrent” includes a notice that several results have been removed on copyright grounds.

source:
http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-demands-...ailers-140502/