In the latest in a series of practices Google removes “Pirate Bay” from auto complete. There is a saying that the journey of a thousand miles begins with but one step, and Google has begun to take that journey. These moves should be celebrated by artists, musicians and creators – however we’d suggest some cautious optimism given Google’s history of appearances over actual meaningful change. None the less, this recent move can’t be seen as anything less than positive.

In addition to this latest change, Google has:

1) Created a (relatively) easy to use web form for de-listing up to 10,000 infringing links from Google Search in just one DMCA notice.

2) Begun to drop the rankings of sites identified as predominantly dedicated to infringing activity (as determined by the volume of accurate DMCA notices for de-listing).

3) Providing Content Management System (CMS) tools to individual artists, musicians, filmmakers and creators on YouTube.

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that these policies reinforce what we have always said, reducing online piracy is a question of will not capability. As Google implements more of these policies the shallow talking points of the freehadists become more diminished. Online piracy is about free beer, not free speech and we applaud Google for these early and hopefully meaningful baby steps towards an Ethical and Sustainable Internet for all citizens. And uhm, no Torrent Freak, it’s not censorship… let the screaming begin…

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Originally posted in the Weekly Update for September 16th