BPI criticizes Google's position toward piracy after the debut of Play

Google just launched in Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the UK its new online store Google Play, selling music in competition with iTunes and Amazon, with cheap and consumer-friendly prices; but BPI (British Phonographic Industry, the British record industry's trade association) heavily criticized the initiative.

BPI's chief executive Geoff Taylor, indeed, commented: "We don't think it makes any sense for them to be doing something which does support artists and then, on the other hand, undermine artists by referring consumers to illegal sites. We personally think that three months should be long enough to get it working". BPI's heavy criticism revolves around the assumption that google is not really fighting piracy in an effective way and heavy-handedly.

On the other hand Sami Valkonen, head of international licensing for Google Play, explained what BPI is looking for is not as easy as that. "The way that our search engine works is a completely separate algorithm from anything we do on Google Play," he said. "Our search algorithm is a very complex beast and how it works, I have no clue". So - basically - Play and the search engine are two completely separated items

Already available in the US, Google Play makes millions of tracks available for a typical price of around 99p.