MUMBAI: British Phonographic Industry (BPI), has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google asking the popular search engine take down links that lead to popular file-sharing sites, including Megaupload, 4shared.com, Zippyshare, and MediaFire.

The complaint says there are at least 38 links "available via Google's search engine, and [requests these] links be removed as soon a possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by [BPI] members."

The links point to songs, ranging from K'Naan's Wavin' Flag to Michael Bubl?©'s Haven't Met You Yet, plus tracks by Eminem and the cast of TV series Glee. While Google does not operate any of the infringing websites, search queries lead users to illegal downloads sites such as MegaUpload, SendSpace and UserShare each of which hosts thousands of illegal songs.

To further its case, the BPI even cites the search queries that bring up the offending links. As stated in the letter, searches for "dizzee rascal dirtee disco" and "k'naan wavin' flag download" bring up free download sites in the first several pages of results.

Google in its defense earlier has often said they are not liable as they only index sites and list them, while not hosting any files.