British Phonographic Industry (BPI) asks the search engine to remove links to copyrighted material, making one wonder why it seems to get a free pass while sites like The Pirate Bay face closure.
For a while now file-sharers have seen a double standard unfold as BitTorrent tracker sites like The Pirate Bay have faced the wrath of copyright holders while search engines like Google remain untouched. That era may be coming to an end now that the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has filed a DMCA complaint asking it to remove links to infringing material.
“Part of our work involves monitoring the internet and taking action against persons that use, facilitate, enable and/or authorise the use of material in a manner that infringes the rights of the members of BPI and PPL,” it reads. “We have identified the following links that are available via Google’s search engine, and request the following links be removed as soon as possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by our members.”
Last April the The Pirate Bay was found guilty of copyright infringement despite the fact that it doesn’t actually host copyrighted material, that it merely hosts links to trackers that allow people to illegally share copyrighted material. It’s the same thing Google does. Google doesn’t host any copyrighted material and only lists links to where it can be found.
It’s a double standard to be sure. A Google custom search site called The Pirate Google even sprang up after the trial to point out that “sites such as Google offer much the same functionality as The Pirate Bay and other Bit Torrent sites but are not targeted by media conglomerates such as the IFPI as they have the political and legal clout to defend themselves unlike these small independent sites.”
Those comparisons were later met with indignation by Google which didn’t much like being heaped in the same group as the world’s “most notorious” file-sharing site.
“Google, as well as YouTube, eBay and others, are zealous and active in removing illegal content on the reporting of the rights holders and therefore act in an environment that promotes the legitimate use of content uploading, and discourages the abuse,” it said.
That may be true but, the fact remains that users can access copyrighted material on the site in the same way they do any of the BitTorrent tracker sites that the music industry has targeted over the years.
The BPI was instrumental in getting the UK govt to finally pass “three-strikes” legislation this past April, a regime it even hopes goes “global.” One amendment, 120a, was even determined to have been taken verbatim from a letter it wrote to the govt asking for specific revisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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