Google Powered Torrent Search
23 Apr
A few days ago, when the responsibles for The Pirate Bay were found guilty, I hinted at a way to search for BitTorrent files using Google. Well, someone actually went and created a wrapper using Google Custom Search that uses that trick, and The Pirate Google was born!
Please Note: This site is not affiliated with Google, it simply makes use of Google Custom Search to restrict your searches to Torrent files. You can do this with any regular Google search by appending your query with filetype:torrent. This technique can be used for any type of file supported by Google.
The intention of this site is to demonstrate the double standard that was exemplified in the recent Pirate Bay Trial. Sites such as Google offer much the same functionality as The Pirate Bay and other Bit Torrent sites but are not targeted by media conglomerates such as the IFPI as they have the political and legal clout to defend themselves unlike these small independent sites.
This site is created in support of an open, neutral internet accessible and equitable to all regardless of political or financial standing.
Kudos to them!
Also, I love the logo.
On related news, it seems that we might have a retrial of the Pirate Bay case. One of the lawyers representing the Pirates has “called for a retrial after reports that the judge was a member of the same copyright protection organisations as several of the main entertainment industry representatives”.
One of the groups of which Norström [the judge] is a signed up member is Svenska föreningen för upphovsrätt (‘the Swedish Copyright Association’), where he is joined by Henrik Pontén, Peter Danowsky and Monique Wadsted, all of whom represented the entertainment industry in the case against file sharing site The Pirate Bay.
The judge also sits on the board of Svenska föreningen för industriellt rättsskydd (Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property), a group actively advocating for more stringent copyright laws.
Norström argues that he was not however swayed in his judgement by involvement with copyright protection groups.
Ah! I mean Ahrrrr!
UPDATE: It seems that Google has been disabling these kinds of sites, but you can still use the filetype:torrent attribute in regular google searches (via Inquisitr).
the million dollar question is: Will Google also be sued like the Pirate Bay was?!
Of course not, IFPI and the rest of the gang only mess with whom they know they can bother. They deeply need Google as much as anyone and they don’t want to buy a fight they know they’ll lose.