The fact that the British Phonographic Industry (the BPI, the institution that represents the U.K.'s recording industry) has threatened legal action against Google for its linking to myriad music piracy sites highlights a wider, and difficult and unresolved issue about the internet as a whole. First, the facts--the BPI has said that it has sent 50 million (yes, you read that right) "takedown" notices to the internet giant pertaining to illegal sites that have come up in Google searches (often, according to the BPI, above legal downloading sites). The BPI's chief executive, Geoff Taylor, reportedly accused Google of "leading consumers into a murky underworld of unlicensed sites." But the legal argument is larger, and more fascinating.
It goes to the heart of what the internet actually is. To give a parallel example, when I was the editor of Gramophone, we had an online chat forum. So, say someone jumps onto the forum and posts something defamatory that illegally harms someone or their business: Who is to blame? Or, if they post pirated sound files for anyone to download? We didn't post it. And if anyone pointed out anything like that on the site, and it infringed our terms and conditions, it would be taken down immediately.
But speaking purely legally--from a website's point of view--the lighter touch they have the better, in some ways. Or, at least this was the case last time I had my legal training, which is no doubt outdated. But the thinking then was this: An online forum, just like a search engine or indeed public hosting platform like YouTube, is not itself a publisher. Think of it more like shelves in a shop. Yes, the shopkeeper decides from a list which magazines to stock, but he is not deemed to be responsible for the content of those magazines. If one contains something illegal, he takes it down. And that is that.
Abstaining from responsibility? Well, not necessarily. The law is still being formed around the internet, it's playing catch-up. And until the potential penalties are less stringent for content, if you try and police in advance, ironically, websites are more likely to back away than toughen up (that, for instance, is why so many online forums are post-moderated rather than pre-moderated--if you look at everything in advance, you are, arguably, saying that you actively approved everything on the site...and that turns you into a publisher).
Some things are clearly wrong. Piracy is clearly wrong. I don't do it, neither should you, and people who host such sites deserve to be caught and shut down. Expecting a company dealing with such enormous bodies of outside content as Google, YouTube and the others to find a way to block such content isn't wrong. It just may be impractical with the law as it is. Or was. Over to the legal eagles.
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