Warner Bros. Accuses Itself of Piracy

The movie studio has apparently been the victim of overzealous copyright protection systems.


(CCM) — Warner Bros. has been left red-faced after asking Google to remove its own websites from Google's search results on the grounds that it is offering pirated material, according to a BBC report. Warner Bros. regularly makes this type of request to protect its intellectual property, but in recent weeks the company and Vobile, its anti-piracy partner, have asked Google to remove links to Warner Bros.' official The Dark Knight, The Matrix, and The Lucky One sites. It has also asked Google to remove links to the page on Amazon where customers can rent or buy The Dark Knight, to the Sky Cinema store, and to the movie's page on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).

Vobile issues hundreds of thousands of deletion requests on behalf of its clients every month, the BBC says, and the mistaken requests are likely to have been made thanks to the use of software which scans the internet for Warner Bros' copyrighted material and issues them automatically. Google has so far rejected the requests to remove the Amazon, Sky Cinema, and IMDb pages but has not yet made a decision about Warner Bros' official movie pages.