This is interesting. The Wall Street Journal says the major record companies might sue Google over their past partnership with two websites which are accused of distributing a BitTorrent client and P2P search system used primarily to illegally share music and film content over the net.
The two websites in question, EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com, generated much of its revenues between 2003 and 2005 by subscribing to the Google AdSense service, which gives Google's advertisers access to participating website's audiences in return for a cut of ad revenues. The WSJ reckons the two sites generated more than $1.1 million via the AdSense programme over the two years.
Both sites are now facing legal action over the distribution of the aforementioned file sharing software, and, because they generated most of their income through Google (and possibly because the software websites aren't that cash rich at the moment), the WSJ says industry lawyers are looking into the possibility of suing Google in relation to this case - because they profited from adverts that appeared on sites which allegedly encouraged copyright violation.
Suing Google in that way would probably be a 'by association' too far to really apply the current legal precedent for making the distributors of P2P technology liable for the copyright violation they enable, and the WSJ is a bit vague about exactly who is considering this kind of legal action or when any lawsuits may be launched. But it would have some interesting implications for online ad syndication programmes if any legal action was taken.