Link-Busters Sent a Billion DMCA Takedown Requests to Google Search

Link-Busters, an anti-piracy company, has reached a significant milestone by sending over a billion DMCA takedown requests to Google Search. This surge in takedown efforts is attributed to publishers aiming to combat shadow libraries like Anna's Archive and Z-Library. Penguin Random House emerges as the most active rightsholder in this endeavor. The takedown requests are outsourced to companies like Link-Busters, which target copyright-infringing URLs to make pirated content harder to find. Google processes the highest number of takedown requests, nearing 10 billion in total. Link-Busters, based in Amsterdam, has become the first reporting company to achieve a billion takedowns for Google Search, primarily driven by publishing companies combating the rise of shadow libraries and AI scraping threats. Despite the high number of takedowns, not all URLs are removed from Google search, with approximately 75% being successfully taken down, while others are blacklisted or not removed for various reasons. The continuous resilience of targeted sites suggests that takedown efforts will persist to combat online piracy effectively.