Internet: I never thought I'd agree with Murdoch but...

I am an author. One of my group companies is a publisher. We have a vested interest in protecting our intellectual copyright and our (in particular my) reputation.

But Google and Amazon appear to have little or no concern about the rights of those they serve.

Rupert Murdoch is right. Through YouTube, Google is a leader in piracy. But it would be wrong to single out YouTube: many other websites cling to the YouTube coat-tails and allow uploading of copyright material, and (in any normal sense of the word) rebroadcast it and, in providing that service, generate revenue. Whether it's "profit" is open to debate.

The search engine business is at minimum a facilitator of copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is a criminal offence in many countries and it is at least arguable that search engines that link to criminal websites are aiding and abetting those criminal websites. That includes the thousands of websites promoting illegal copies of drugs, motor components and handbags, etc.

Searching Google for my book "How Not To Be A Money Launderer" shows that it is available as an illegal download. The ebook version is published for the Kindle platform and has digital rights management (DRM) enabled. Strangely, the illegal copy appeared just days after someone purchased a copy then sent it back for refund. That has happened only once. Whether this is a coincidence, I cannot say.

It's not just my book: World Money Laundering Report, published by Vortex Centrum (the publisher of BankingInsuranceSecurities.Com and ChiefOfficers.Net) is also available from illegal republishers.

Amazon.Com strictly controls the circulation of the book - indeed, their "customer services department" has threatened me with restriction of my account because I downloaded a copy of my own book while in Malaysia, a country that Amazon.Com (not me) has decided my book should not be distributed to. I have authorised the book for worldwide distribution. It also restricts sales of World Money Laundering Report, blocking sales to many countries despite Vortex Centrum Ltd authorising worldwide distribution.

Amazon.Com has much to answer for, too. A fraudulent, malicious and libellous "review" was posted by an Amazon.Com user under a false identity. Amazon.Com refuse to remove it and refuse to identify the perpetrator. Recently, Amazon.co.uk has republished the same comment - but have failed to append my rebuttal. An e-mail from Amazon.Co.UK admits "I understand that the review on your book, How Not to be a Money Launderer, is fraudulent and libellous. I'm terribly sorry for any concern this has caused you."

However, the e-mail goes on "we will not be removing the review you have complained about. As a retailer we are interested in cultivating a diversity of opinion on our products. Part of that is allowing our customers to air their honest thoughts on items they have received."

But the "review" is not honest and, so far as I know, the person writing the comment (I have a suspicion as to who it is) has not read it. In fact, the "review" is nothing more than a personal attack on me.For sure, he did not buy it through Amazon.Com: it was not available through that channel at the time the comment was posted.

Amazon.Co.uk do say that, if a statement is defamatory, victims should complete a form with necessary information. I did that and e-mailed it to them. They insist that it should be delivered in hard copy.

But Amazon.Co.UK have not noticed that the law in the UK does not protect them in the same way as US law protects Amazon.Com. There is no equivalent of the US provision that says that there is no liability in libel for simply republishing material found elsewhere on the internet, although a decision in the English High Court in a case against Google has provided some comfort.

Murdoch is also right that the US government is under the control of its Silicon Valley paymasters: the outrageous "software patents" system is anti-competitive and blocks international trade. it is ironic that the biggest industry for copyright infringement appears to accept that its own products require additional protection.

US internet providers of services by internet (as distinct from ISPs) appear to consider that legal and moral obligations are irrelevant. They are not too big to fail: they are too big to police.

Google and Amazon.Com were both formed by those seeking freedoms from the tyranny of established ways of doing business. They were formed on the basis of doing the right thing.

Both have, patently, lost that ethos.

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Nigel Morris-Cotterill is Head, The Anti Money Laundering Network, ultimate parent of ChiefOfficers.Net.