There’s now an official HTTP status code for legal takedowns: 451

HTTP status codes are a core part of helping your browser understand what to do with a page. You’re probably familiar with 404 — page not found — but there are a plethora of others, like 302, which help tell your browser a page has moved.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has finally created a standard for when a page has been taken down due to legal reasons. The new status code, 451, indicates that a host has received a legal demand to deny access to a resource.

I’m not sure what I think about this. It makes me feel a little sad, but at the same time, I can see why it is needed.