The battle against piracy has been going for decades and the entertainment industries have now turned to the world's largest internet search engine for help. Google has been at the receiving end of the criticism by Hollywood entertainment companies for promoting piracy by listing the content of torrent websites in its searches.
Over the years, Google has tried to counter copyright infringing content by removing links from its search, but it hasn't succeeded completely. But Google and other search engines are reportedly working with entertainment studios to curb online piracy.
According to Torrent Freak, Google and other search giants might ban torrent links from their search engines. The details of the meeting between the two groups haven't been made public, but the UK government is said to play a big hand in it and the mutual agreement is extremely close to being signed.
According to Baroness Buscombe of the UK Parliament, once agreed upon, the code should come into effect within four months.
"The search engines involved in this work have been very co-operative, making changes to their algorithms and processes, but also working bilaterally with creative industry representatives to explore the options for new interventions, and how existing processes might be streamlined," Buscombe told Torrent Freak.
But there are several challenges Google and other search engines would face on a global level. It remains to be seen how these search engines implement the new anti-piracy measures outside the UK.
Even if the search giants implement these new rules globally, what impact will they have on piracy. Users are not entirely blocked from visiting the torrent sites like Kickass Torrents, The Pirate Bay, Torrentz and others directly. It would only mean that using search engines to reach there will be banished.