Google Receives Cease-and-Desist from BPI, Plans to Launch Music Service

Google is a hot topic on the interwebs these days. When the company isn’t getting sued by Viacom, it’s preparing to launch a music-download service to accompany its search engine. According to the Wall Street Journal, the service might become available later this year, but an actual music download store or online subscription service wouldn’t be available until 2011. In addition to offering the new music services for the Android as well as the web, Google is also planning on launching a digital bookstore sometime this year.

In other Google news, just as a federal judge tossed Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube, claiming the company could not be held responsible for copyrighted material being posted on the site (via USA Today), British recording industry association BPI sent the search engine operators a cease-and-desist order asking them to take down links to sites hosting illegal songs. Boy, those Google folks just can’t catch a break.

BPI claims there are 38 links to “one-click hosting” sites available on the Google search engine and requests that they “be removed as soon as possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by [BPI] members,” The Guardian reports. Although Google has no ties to any of the file-sharing websites, BPI is holding the company responsible because its search engine directs users to such sites.

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