Warner Bros reports its own websites for copyright infringement
Intellectual Property rights, such as copyright and trade marks, are extremely important to film studios and it is the enforcement of these rights that ensure film companies continue to make money. A widely used strategy for these companies is to utilise the services of a third party which conducts automated searches and takes the necessary legal action to remove copyright infringing and pirated films from the internet. Whilst this strategy is effective, and the third parties involved are often considered, ‘heavy-handed’ and aggressive, it is essential that the film company retains control and ensures mistakes are not made.
In this case, the company taking legal action for Warner Bros requested that Google remove several of Warner Bros own, legitimate websites on the basis of copyright infringement. Also reported were a number of licensed movie portals such as Amazon and Sky who were legitimately advertising Warner Bros films for download. These, ‘take-down’ requests to Google are a cheap method for removing infringing material from the internet and there is currently no requirement for the party making the request to prove its case. Whether any damage occurs to Warner Bros from this will depend on the action that Google takes based on these requests, however, this has provided further evidence that many appear to be issued on an automated basis without satisfactory oversight.
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