Your game is on a pirate site. What you can remove, and what is worth your time.
You searched your game's name with "free download" after it, half hoping for nothing. There it was: your capsule art, your description, and a download button that is not yours.
A game we shipped was extracted, rebuilt and resold, so we know the feeling in your stomach right now. A free copy on a download site is a different problem from a copy on sale, and it has a different answer. This page covers who can actually remove the copy, how to get it out of search results, what sending a notice reveals about you, and how much of your week this deserves. It describes the process as the services and the law set it out. It is not legal advice, and the points where a lawyer is worth paying are marked.
The short answer
- You cannot remove every copy, and you do not have to. The aim is that a player searching for your game finds your store page first, and the free copy only with effort.
- Search results are the step that pays most. Google and Bing take copyright notices for individual result links. Google reports an average of about six hours to process one sent through its form.
- The download page and the file usually sit on different services. Each takes its own notice. The service that stores the file is the one that can delete it.
- Cloudflare forwards your complaint. It does not remove the site. For most sites behind it, it passes the notice to the hosting company and the site operator.
- Assume the site operator will read what you send. Notices are forwarded and some are published. Write every one as if it will be public.
- Set a time budget and keep it. A cleared copy tends to come back. An hour at launch and an hour after each big update is a routine you can sustain.
- If someone is charging money for your game, that is a different case with stronger tools. Start with the page on copies being sold.
1. Work out what you are looking at
Three things can sit behind a "free download" result, and they are handled differently.
| What it is | How to tell | What works |
|---|---|---|
| A download page on a pirate site | A page with your art and description, and links that lead off to file-hosting services or a torrent | Search delisting, a notice to the file host, a notice to the site's hosting company |
| A file on a file-hosting service | A bare download link on a service that stores uploads for anyone | A notice to that service. It holds the file and can delete it. |
| A torrent listing | A page on an index site that offers a torrent or magnet link | Search delisting and a notice to the index site. There is no single stored copy to delete. |
| Your game on sale under another name | A price, a seller, a store listing | A different process. See what to do when someone is selling your game. |
Before anything else, save what you found: the full address of each page, a dated screenshot, and a capture on the Internet Archive's Save Page Now. Note which version of the game is on offer if the page says. That tells you how recent the copy is, and whether your latest update is in it.
You do not need to download the file to report the page. A file from a site like this is not something to open on the machine that holds your source and your store logins.
2. Decide how much time this deserves
This is the question under the anger: how many sales is this costing me? Nobody can give you your number. The published evidence is thinner than either side of the argument admits, and none of it measures a small studio.
- The best recent estimate is about large games. A paper by William Volckmann in Entertainment Computing (2025) looked at 86 games sold on Steam between 2014 and 2022 with commercial copy protection. As reported in summaries of the paper, a working pirate copy in the first week after release was associated with about a 20 percent loss of revenue, falling to about 5 percent when it appeared after six weeks. Sales were estimated from review and player counts, not from sales records. We could not read the full text and rely on those summaries.
- A European Commission study could not find a firm number for games. The Commission's summary of its 2017 displacement study, built on a survey of close to 30,000 people in six countries, says the displacement of legal by illegal consumption is difficult to estimate. It reports a robust result only for recent top films. It also found that game prices broadly coincide with what people who download illegally say they would pay.
- One small studio published its own count. In 2013 Greenheart Games tracked both versions of Game Dev Tycoon on its first day and reported 214 genuine players and at least 3,104 on the cracked copy. That shows how many people played without paying. It does not show how many of them would have bought it.
Our reading of this, and it is a reading: the damage is concentrated in the first weeks, when most of a game's revenue arrives, and it falls on the players who were close to buying and found the free copy first. That points to a narrow goal. Make the free copy hard to stumble on during the weeks that matter, and do not try to erase it from the internet.
So set a budget before you start. An hour or two now. An hour at each major update and each big sale. If you find yourself checking pirate sites daily, the copy is costing you more in attention than it ever did in sales. That time belongs to the game and to the people who paid for it.
3. Who can remove what
A pirate copy is held up by several services at once. Each can do one thing, and it helps to ask each only for what it can do.
| Service | What it can do | What it cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Search engine | Remove the result link, so the page stops appearing for searches of your game | Remove the page or the file. Both stay online. |
| File-hosting service | Delete the stored file, which breaks every page that links to it | Stop the same file being uploaded again under a new link |
| The site's hosting company | Require its customer to remove the page, or suspend the site | Act if it is based somewhere that ignores foreign copyright complaints |
| A network in front of the site, such as Cloudflare | Pass your complaint to the hosting company and the operator | Remove content it does not store |
| Domain registrar | Sometimes act on its own abuse policy | Usually anything about page content. ICANN says complaints about copyright infringement in website content are outside its scope and authority. |
| The site itself | Remove the page, if it honors notices at all | Be relied on. Some sites publish a takedown address and answer it. Many do not. |
To find out who the services are, start from public records. ICANN's registration data lookup shows a domain's registrar and name servers. If the name servers belong to Cloudflare, the real hosting company is hidden behind it, and section 6 covers that. For a service based in the United States, the Copyright Office's agent directory lists the address each registered service has designated for copyright notices.
If you are in the European Union, or the service operates there, the Digital Services Act requires hosting services to give people a way to report illegal content electronically. That is a second route alongside the United States process described here.
4. The notice is the same one, pointed at a different address
A copyright notice to a file host, a hosting company or a search engine has the same six elements as a notice to a store. They come from section 512(c)(3) of the Copyright Act, and the six elements are set out here with wording. Two details change with the recipient.
- Give each service the address it controls. The file host needs the link to the file. The hosting company needs the address of the page. The search engine needs the address of the result. For search engines the statute says the notice must identify the reference or link to be removed, in subsection (d).
- List every address. A notice covers the links you name. Google asks for the specific URL of the content, and says a site's home page is not enough.
You do not need a copyright registration to send a notice, and you do not need to live in the United States. Registration matters later, if this ever reaches a court. The registration guide covers when to file.
One limit applies to every notice. You state, under penalty of perjury, that you are the owner or act for the owner, and you state a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized. Send notices only for pages that offer your game. A review, a video, a wiki or a page that merely mentions the game is not a pirate copy, and the law has a penalty for knowingly false claims.
5. Start with search results
Most players who end up on a pirate copy did not go looking for a pirate site. They searched for your game. Removing the result link leaves the page online, and it still takes the page out of the place where people were finding it. In our view this is the highest return for the time spent.
- Requests go through Google's legal removal request tool. You pick the product, which is Search, and the reason, which is copyright, and the tool leads to the right form.
- Google says its average processing time for removal requests sent through the Search web form is approximately six hours.
- Notices add up. Google's own guide to its ranking systems says that when it receives a significant volume of valid copyright removal requests involving a site, it can use that to demote other content from the site in its results. Your notice counts toward that along with those of every other developer the site has copied.
- The site can answer. Google says a website owner can submit a counter-notification, and Google may then reinstate the link.
Bing
Microsoft's infringement reporting page links to a form for copyright infringement in Bing's non-paid results. It asks for the same elements: your contact details, the work, the infringing links, the two statements and a signature.
Which results to report
Search for your game's exact name, alone and with words like "free", "download" and "torrent". Report the infringing pages on the first two pages of results. Results further down are seen by very few people, and each address you add is one more to check. Then look at what the top result is. If it is your store page or your own site, the search step is done.
6. Then the file, then the host
The file-hosting service
Many download pages hold no file. They link to a general file-hosting service. That service is often a legitimate business with a copyright form, and it is the one party that can delete the file. One removal there breaks the link on every page that pointed to it. Follow the download link far enough to see which service it leads to, without downloading anything, and send the notice to that service with the file's address.
Sites behind Cloudflare
Cloudflare is explicit about what it does. For sites that only pass through its network, it says it will forward your complaint to the website operator and the hosting provider, and give the hosting provider the address of the server so it can find the content. It removes content only where it is the host. So a Cloudflare report is a way to reach a hosting company you cannot see. It is not a takedown in itself.
Cloudflare's reporting page lists a category for copyright infringement and DMCA violations. It says it only processes copyright reports that include all the information section 512(c) requires, because it shares them with the hosting provider and the operator.
The hosting company
Where the hosting company is visible, it will have an abuse address or form. Hosting companies in the United States and the European Union generally act on a complete notice, because their own legal protection depends on it. Some pirate sites choose hosts for the opposite reason. If a host does not answer, you have learned what you needed to know about that site, and the search step in section 5 is the one that still works.
Torrents
A torrent has no single stored copy. The file sits on the computers of the people sharing it. What can be removed is the listing on the index site and the search results that lead to it. Send those notices and leave the rest.
7. What your notice reveals
A notice carries your name, your contact details and your signature. Plan on the other side seeing them.
- Cloudflare forwards complaints to the site operator and the host, as above. Its page adds that for some categories of complaint you can direct it not to forward to the operator.
- Google says it shares a copy of qualifying copyright removal requests with Lumen, a public archive of removal requests, where website owners may inspect them.
- File hosts and hosting companies commonly pass a notice on to the customer it concerns.
The notice has to be truthful, so the answer is not to disguise who you are. If you run a studio, send notices in the studio's name with its business address and a business email. If you work alone from home and that worries you, a lawyer or an agent can send notices on your behalf, since the statute allows a person authorized to act for the owner. Whichever you choose, write plainly, state the facts, and leave out the anger. Someone may post it.
8. It will come back
A removed file is uploaded again under a new link. A delisted page returns under a new address. This is the part that wears developers down, and it is why the budget in section 2 matters more than any single notice.
Some things are on your side. Services that want the law's protection must have a policy for terminating repeat infringers, under subsection (i), so repeated valid notices against the same uploader can cost them the account. Search demotion builds with every valid notice against a site. And the copy on a pirate site is frozen at the version that was taken. Every update you ship makes it older.
A routine that holds up:
- Keep one document with your notice text, your evidence links and a list of every address you have reported, with dates.
- Run the searches from section 5 at launch, after each major update, and before each big sale.
- Report what is on the first two pages. Send file-host notices for new links.
- Close the document. Go back to the game.
9. What moves sales more than a notice does
Valve's documentation for developers is blunt about copy protection. Of its own wrapper, it says it is not an anti-piracy solution, that it protects against extremely casual piracy, and that it is easily removed by a motivated attacker. What it suggests is enhancing the value of legitimate copies with features that do not work on the others, and it names online multiplayer, achievements, leaderboards and trading cards.
That advice holds for a studio of any size. In our view these are the things within your control:
- Keep updating. The pirate copy stops at one version. Fixes, content and compatibility patches all land on the paid copy only.
- Give the paid copy things a file cannot carry. Cloud saves, workshop content, online play, achievements.
- Look at your regional prices. The Commission study found game prices broadly in line with what illegal downloaders would pay. Where your price is far above local norms, that gap is one you can close.
- Offer a demo. Some people take a free copy to find out whether the game runs and whether they like it. A demo answers both on your store page.
- Talk to players the way you would want to be talked to. Saying plainly what a sale means to a small team costs nothing. Contempt for the people who took the free copy gives none of them a reason to buy later.
10. When this is more than a free copy
Most pirate copies stay what they are: a nuisance with a ceiling. A few signs mean the situation has changed and the routine above is no longer the right tool.
- Someone is charging for it. A copy on a store, on a key site, or behind a paywall is a sale. Stores act faster than pirate sites, and there may be money to recover. See what to do when someone is selling your game.
- The copy has been changed and renamed. A reskinned or rebuilt version presented as a new game is a different case again. The page on clones covers where copying ends and imitation begins.
- The name is being used to sell something else. That is a trademark matter, covered in the guide to trademarking a game name.
- A build leaked before release. The timing changes everything, including whether the source is someone you gave a copy to. Talk to a lawyer before you do anything public.
- You want to know who is behind a site. The statute has a process for a subpoena to identify an infringer, in subsection (h), issued through a federal court. That is lawyer's work. For a small studio the question is usually whether knowing the name would change anything.
Common questions
Can I get my game removed from a pirate site?
Sometimes. The service storing the file can delete it, and a hosting company can make its customer remove a page. Sites built to ignore notices often do. What you can reliably do is remove the page from Google and Bing results, which is where most people would have found it.
Does it cost anything to send these notices?
No. The forms are free and you can send them yourself. You pay only if you hire a lawyer or a takedown service to send them for you.
Do I need to register my copyright first?
No. A notice needs your statement that you own the work, not a registration number. Registration becomes important if you ever need to sue in the United States.
How long does Google take to remove a result?
Google reports an average of approximately six hours for requests sent through its Search web form. Individual requests vary.
Will the pirate site see my name?
Plan on it. Cloudflare forwards complaints to the operator and the host, and Google shares copies of removal requests with a public archive. Use your studio's name and business contact details where you have them.
Is my game being pirated a sign that it is doing well?
It is a sign that people have heard of it. It tells you little about sales in either direction. Treat it as neither a compliment nor a catastrophe.
Should I add copy protection?
That is a product decision more than a legal one. Valve's own documentation says its wrapper stops only casual copying and recommends features that work on legitimate copies only. The one large study of commercial protection found the effect concentrated in the first weeks after release.
Should I pay a takedown service?
A service sends the same notices you can send. It may be worth it if the volume is beyond what an hour a month covers. Ask exactly what is included: which search engines, which hosts, how often, and whether notices go out in your name or theirs.
The page has no game on it, only my art and a fake button. Can I still report it?
Your capsule art and description are your copyrighted work, so a page that copies them can be reported for that. Say in the notice what was copied. Do not claim the page offers the game if you have not seen that it does.
This page describes United States procedure and the published policies of Google, Microsoft, Cloudflare, ICANN and Valve as read on 11 October 2026. Policies change, and the linked pages are the authority. The time budget, the order of steps and the views on what affects sales are our own analysis. It is general information, not legal advice about your situation.