Google sucked into RIAA/P2P fight

Popular search engine Google has been sucked into the ongoing legal battle between the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and peer-to-peer sites (P2P).

Following a court ruling in favour of the RIAA, Sharman Networks, the developers of the popular Kazaa P2P site, sent a letter to Google requesting that it remove links to certain sites.

Fifteen sites are thought to be in breach of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and are said by Sharman Networks to be running unauthorised copies of its Kazaa P2P software.

The letter demanded that Google should "immediately remove or disable all access to the infringing material".

Google has now removed the URLs from its search listings.

In a statement posted at the foot of its search results, Google said: "In response to a complaint we received under the DMCA, we have removed eight result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results."

Google has also posted a link to the letter from Sharman.

It has listed the full URLs of the sites it has removed, of which all but three still worked when tested by vnunet.com.