Google roped into RIAA and KaZaA battle

By Alun Williams

Posted on 1 Sep 2003 at 15:03

No one questions Google's power of retrieval these days, but legal rulings can have an effect.

The all-powerful search engine has now been roped into the ongoing dispute between RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the makers of the KaZaA peer-to-peer software.

Slashdot has spotted that Google has cut down on its search listings for KaZaA Lite, under the terms of the DMCA Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

If you perform the KaZaA Lite search, 376,000 results are obtained but a number of URLs are missing. The abbreviated search listing is tailed with the following statement from Google:

'In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 8 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results.'

If you follow that first link, you will see Google's position on DMCA, which states 'it is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.'

The second link conveniently lists the URLs removed under the DMCA complaint submitted by Sharman Networks, maker of the KaZaA peer-to-peer software. This move follows Sharman Networks' failure in its bid to force the major record and film production companies to allow file sharing - KaZaA fails in anti-trust bid against RIAA

Removed sites include www.kazaagold.com, www.kazaalite.tk, and www.kaaza.com. In the Notice of Copyright Infringement, Sharman Network requests Google to 'immediately remove or disable all access to the Infringing Material'. You can follow the link for the full list of removed sites.

See also:

File-swapping gets the OK in LA