It is often said that new technology is disruptive. The internet has proved to be no exception to that rule. Digital networks have completely rewritten the rules of production and distribution. Shelf space, air time, room on the pages of a newspaper - these used to determine which artists got their records played, what TV shows we watched and which opinions appeared in print.

Today anyone can record songs and put them online; shoot home movies, edit them, add special effects and broadcast them to millions worldwide; or start a blog, sharing opinions and comments with readers in different countries and on different continents.

Not surprisingly, people are using these new freedoms to express themselves – to create and communicate, to organise and influence, to speak and be heard. Go to Google Video or YouTube and you'll see that the communities using these services view themselves not as passive recipients of broadcast content but active participants in the creative process. Trying either to control user preferences or to curtail their choice is doomed to failure. Why? Because people want control over their media, rather than to be controlled by it.

The benefits for individuals of this new media environment are pretty apparent. Less obvious is the way in which the net has created valuable new opportunities for established players who have been entertaining audiences for decades. The reality is that the internet’s rising tide is lifting business across the board. Take the music industry for example. Apple's iTunes store didn't exist four years ago. Today it has sold more than a billion songs online. Or David Hasselhoff who made his video – Jump in My Car - available on Google Video well before it went on sale. This generated over 6 million play backs, masses of user interest and catapulted the song straight to number three in the UK charts.

Last week four major media companies – CBS, SonyBMG, Vivendi Universal and Warner – signed deals with either Google or YouTube. All see the enormous potential the internet offers. There are now a billion people online - by far the biggest market the world has ever known. It is the cheapest and most flexible distribution platform available – its simple protocols and open standards enable people to communicate anytime, anywhere, anyhow. And the internet has spawned the most targeted and measurable form of advertising we've seen to date.

More importantly the internet has made it possible for content owners to interact with users, harnessing their talents, ingenuity and enthusiasm, in ways that were unimaginable just ten years ago. This summer, for example, NBC - makers of the American television series The Office - ran a competition on YouTube where fans made their own promo for the hit TV show. And we've seen singers – like Teddy Geiger - and bands – like Cartel - interacting directly with online communities to drive interest in their music. The trend is clear – instead of viewing user creativity as illegal activity, many media companies now see it as an opportunity to raise awareness of their content.

The internet is not a zero sum game – it's not "either-or", but "and". Media companies can, for example, create their own destination sites and work with search engines to help people find their content. Just as retailers use the internet to market their products (one study suggested that around two thirds of customers research their purchase online before going to a shop to buy it), broadcasters can stream videos online and use interest in these clips to promote their shows on TV.

In the digital world one person's success doesn't necessarily come at another's expense. Google’s growth is a great example of this fact. We have hundreds of thousands of online publishing partners whose income - along with 40 per cent of our own - derives from the advertising we place on their websites.

Google does best when our partners do well. And that's because we don't actually own content. We are a technology company in the search and advertising businesses. We help users find, create and communicate information, while enabling people – individuals or companies – to make money from their online content through targeted advertising.

This means working with artists and authors, producers and publishers to help reward their endeavors. And we will only do that by respecting and protecting copyright, which lies at the heart of the creative process. In order to prevent the distribution of copyright-infringing videos, Google gives companies the power to take their own content down quickly and easily and is investing in innovative technology to remove illegal content.

The great paradox of the digital world is that as more and more useful information comes online (today only around 15 per cent of the world's data is digitized), it will be harder for people to find what they want. Online content and web search engines exist — in fact, can only exist — as symbiotic partners, both of whom profit as technology enables more users to find the information they're looking for. That's a win-win proposition if ever I heard one. Let’s keep it that way.

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