Google received 345 mn link-removal requests in 2014

In 2014, Google took 345 million requests to remove links to copyrighted material from its search index.

In 2008, the company received only a total of 68 requests to do so.

According to Sky News the largest number of requests came from the UK's music industry trade body, The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which asked for the removal of over 60 million links.

In addition to BPI only three sites hosted over 5 million disputable links and all are file sharing sites: 4shared.com, rapidgator.net and uploaded.net.

According to Sky News, most of the requests were fulfilled. It added that most of the figures were compiled by Torrent Freak (TF).

''Google doesn't report yearly figures, but at TF we processed all the weekly reports and found that the number of URLs submitted by copyright holders last year surpassed the 345 million mark – 345,169,134 to be exact'', TF writes.

According to Google, even though it started aggressively downranking sites that led to pirated material, the company said that without legal options it was hard to beat unauthorised copying.

Meanwhile, marketbusinessnews.com reported that there were 75 per cent more takedown requests in 2014 than in 2013.

Google said some people and / or companies abused the take-down request service citing the example of a UK driving school that asked a rival's homepage be erased from Google search results as it had mentioned the same cities and regions where driving tuition was offered.

Another example of a refused request was when a US company requested removal of a link to a worker's blog post criticising how it treated its employees.

According to Google, people resorted to piracy as original versions were either too expensive or too difficult to acquire legally.

Google said in a statement: ''Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply.

''Spotify, iTunes and Netfliz are examples of services that have dramatically helped reduce piracy by providing ''The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory.''