The federal government will target search engines as it expands a crackdown on internet piracy, making it harder for Australians to illegally download free movies and music.
The new laws propose to expand this so that complainants could also seek an injunction requiring search engines such as Google and Yahoo to remove or demote search results for piracy websites.
The latter has previously argued that pirates were “facilitated by Google and other search engines” to circumvent Australian laws.
The new laws would also allow copyright holders to more easily have mirror sites for piracy websites blocked. Thursday’s announcement comes after a campaign from Australia’s film and television industry, most prominently Foxtel and Village Roadshow.