BigDave - 10:54 pm on Jul 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

Hundreds of thousands of sites have copyright statements on them. Mine too - a very restrictive one. But we voluntarily relax this restriction to allow Google to build its indices and its cache. That's our "consideration" - and it's a reason there is - actually - a contract between Google and every webmaster on the planet.

And that restrictive statement of your means . . . nothing.

You cannot claim any more rights than copyright law grants to you.

There are also rights that are granted to everyone, and your copyright does not give you the power to remove those rights. In the united States it is called Fair Use, in the UK and most commonwealth countries I believe it is call Fair Dealings.

If what Google is doing falls under Fair Dealings, then you are not voluntarily relaxing anything. If it does not fall under Fair Dealings, then it is copyright infringement and Google better change to an opt-in method for there to be voluntary anything. That's up to the courts to decide (in the US they have almost laways sided with Google so far)