Google gets grumpy on file-sharing sites

The internet giant is limiting search results to exclude certain websites that it associates with the multibillion-dollar piracy of copyrighted digital content

Google has added BitTorrent to its blacklist along with RapidShare and MegaUpload, which it closely associates with digital piracy. Jason Alden / Bloomberg

For the first time in a decade, Google seems to be running scared. The search giant is limiting access to the websites of potential rivals.

The company's initial step is to censor users' torrent and file-sharing searches from its autocomplete and instant-result functions. This means that users searching for file-swapping sites on Google may find their results blocked unless they enter precise search terms.

The move is an attempt to limit the use of websites that facilitate the exchange of pirated digital copies of music, movies, TV programmes and other copyrighted content. Google has added BitTorrent to the blacklist along with several websites, such as RapidShare and MegaUpload, that the company closely associates with digital piracy.

"While it's hard to know for sure when search terms are being used to find infringing content, we'll do our best to prevent autocomplete from displaying the terms most frequently used for that purpose," Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, wrote in the company's public policy blog in December.

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This is the treatment Google has so far reserved for obscene words and phrases. The company's official reason for stigmatising the file-swapping websites in this way is the occurrence of piracy. Google is being seen to have bowed to film and music industry pressure to do something to stem the rise of consumer piracy.

It is the entertainment industry's best-kept secret that it can do little to stem the global trend of downloading copyrighted content without paying for it. An entire generation has grown up with millions feeling they will never pay for a record or film as long as they have an internet connection.

But BitTorrent is fighting back. The company argues that it is not responsible for the uses to which consumers put its software. The company says it merely supplies downloadable software that enables people to exchange digital files and it is no more responsible for the way its software is put to use than Google would be if someone used its mapping and street-view services to plan a burglary. This view has been endorsed by the UK government using BitTorrent to distribute information on state spending to the public.

"We understand that some people may use some of our technologies in ways that represent a risk to certain copyright holders, but certainly no more so than other technologies such as web browsers, DVD/CD burning software … ISPs and more," Shahi Ghanem, the chief strategist at BitTorrent, wrote in a company blog. "Like all of these, BitTorrent technologies have fundamentally transformed the internet and user behaviour, and they are widely used for perfectly legitimate purposes.

"Rather than seeing them continue along their current trajectory, we would prefer to work with Google and other innovators to build technologies that help content creators and enable novel models for legitimate online content distribution. We need Google and others to understand that BitTorrent is part of the solution - not a symptom of the problem."

Despite its meteoric rise from an internet start-up to an IT giant, Google is aware its fortunes are built on the rapidly shifting sands of the internet. And the internet is evolving fast. Millions of consumers are already believed to have actively downloaded or streamed copyrighted entertainment via file-sharing websites.

Some users watch the copyrighted content on laptops or PCs via broadband connections while others simply connect their computers to the living room TV screen. The makers of devices such as smartphones and tablet computers are also enabling a growing number of mobile devices to connect to online content.

Battle lines are being drawn by those who still believe they can protect copyrighted content online. The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that US$25 billion (Dh91.82bn) is lost globally to internet piracy every year. Piracy is blamed for DVD sales in the US falling from a peak of $20.2bn in 2006 to about $14bn last year. The Hollywood studios are therefore taking other steps to stamp out digital piracy.

This is the first year that the Hollywood studios are beginning to find technological alternatives to sending DVDs of new releases to tens of thousands of reviewers for awards such as the Oscars. It is estimated that studios still send as many as 20,000 films by e-mail for each of their latest blockbusters.

Oscar DVDs sent out in late 2008 are now known to be the source of online bootlegs of Slumdog Millionaire,The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Australia. Investigators followed the trail of digital watermarks on the leaked films, and two men were convicted of felony copyright infringement.

The file-sharing services argue that Hollywood should plug such holes in its own security before lobbying against other companies or trying to prosecute movie fans. But Google appears to have sided with the content owners in limiting access to the file-sharing sites.

However, there may be more to Google's tough stance on file-sharing services than a public-spirited desire to help stamp out piracy. BitTorrent has an estimated 100 million active users and facilitates an estimated 400,000 downloads a day.

While even these numbers mean BitTorrent is small compared with Google, it still represents a considerable threat to Google. The search giant is already trying to market its own highly regulated internet video service, Google TV, and has a vested interest in policing online access to copyrighted content. File-sharing services offer users an alternative to Google's increasingly authoritarian and intrusive attitude to its users.

The fight between Google and the file sharers began in earnest more than a year ago when the search engine's operating system Chrome appeared free on file-sharing sites such as Pirate Bay before it had been officially unveiled.

A growing number of younger consumers mainly use the internet for specific services such as social networking and watching films and TV programmes. For these consumers, the censored and commercialised services offered by Google are looking increasingly dated beside online file-sharing services that offer free access to virtually unlimited video entertainment.