BitTorrent goes search

Bram Cohen, the maker of BitTorrent, must be a brave man. He has created a torrent search site in the main page of Bittorrent.com, probably setting himself as the next target for overzealous copyright bozos. The website does not filter materials subject to copyright protection, I just searched for "Episode III" and found various copies of the infringing file (forgive me George for I have sinned).

So, the legal argument about P2P search sites will have to take place, and will eventually have larger implications for the internet. The new BitTorrent search does not share infringing content itself, if you search it will simply point to you to a site that does not host the content either, it only hosts a file that tells you where the seeds are, and the seeds are not the file itself, the file is being shared by various users online. The legal question for me is this: does a link to a site that tells you where the infringing material can be found is in itself infringing? Before you answer, use Google and search "episode iii bittorrent" or "episode iii torrent". I found at least 5 sites with the file through that. If the MPIAA sues BitTorrent, a suit against Google should follow shortly.