Forum Moderators: not2easy
Or are we excluding "cache" from this part of the discussion?
Yes, we are. The comments in his post were about google creating the index and giving you snippets in their SERPs.
I think that most people would agree that Google is on much thinner ice when it comes to displaying the "Cached" content of your website.
After reading a lot of copyright case law, I am not convinced that the case against "Cached" pages is as clear as many of you might think, especially when you take DMCA provisions into account, but it is the only area where I think they have a significant weakness when it comes to copyrights.
Google's wholesale theft (IMO)
Well, your opinion is wrong.
Theft is the illegal taking of property. The property that you own is the copyright, and they did not take the copyright. They may have infringed the copyright, but they did not take it.
"Google's wholesale infringement (IMO)"
Calling it theft was semantically incorrect. Therefore it was provably wrong.
On the other hand, I cannot prove your new statement wrong until there is a judgement and it works its way through the appeals process.
Why am I arguing sematics here? Because you seem to want to file one of these suits, and you better get it clear in your head exactly what you are suing about.
Learn to read the appropriate laws and court opinions, and then go read them.
Then learn to do what any good lawyer, engineer or scientist would do, do everything you can to disprove your case to find possible holes in it.
Shutting down the search engines with a judgement against regular SERPs would cause dramatic repercussions on the internet, and could be seen as damaging to the public good. Judges want nothing to do with such a decision if they can find any way to avoid it. And they have this wonderful out in the Constitution and *why* copyrights exist in the first place.
Why do copyrights exist? It isn't to protect the creators of works. It is to encourage them to create their works for the public good.
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts"
What would you be asking the court to order in the case that you win? Are you going to ask for a narrow ruling that would only affect your specific case? Or would you ask for a ruling that would effectively shut down the search engines?
Of course it makes no sense for an individual to sue Google over search results. However, there is always the possiblity of a class-action lawsuit. Since we are talking about the majority of Google's business, dollar figures would seem to run into the billions.
On a side point about global violations, why are you saying infringment only occurs in the US? When I was in Spain last summer, I was able to search Google.
As an earlier posted stated, all of these potential problems could go away if Google only spidered and indexed websites with opt-in robot directives. I do not think such a requirement would destroy the internet. In fact, I think it would improve it by getting rid of a bunch of garbage that hasn't been updated in years.
You are the only one, though, talking about a lawsuit.
the title of the thread is not "Is Google infringing on copyrights". It is about suing a search engine. That is where I got such a strange idea.
However, there is always the possiblity of a class-action lawsuit. Since we are talking about the majority of Google's business, dollar figures would seem to run into the billions.
I am unaware of any class action suits involving copyrights, and it seems to me that it would have to be a very narrowly defined suit to meet the requirements for class action, and it would be almost impossible to have a class action defined if there is going to be any fair use analysis involved. It is well established that fair use analysis must be done on a case by case basis.
You actually might be able to get a class together on the "Cached" issue, but it seems like there would be too much variability on the SERPs issues to get it defined as a class. 23(b)(1)(B) would seem to kill the chance of getting a class in the case where Fair Use analysis would be involved. Maybe someone with more experience with class action is better able to decypher how it applies.
On a side point about global violations, why are you saying infringment only occurs in the US? When I was in Spain last summer, I was able to search Google.
I said initial infringement. The primary infringing act (if it is, infact, infringing) happens in California. You only see the results of that action in Spain. Most juristiction require that there is sufficient grounds to file the suit in their court, that includes juristiction over the defendant, and juristiction over the action. Judges always prefer to remand the case to someone else if they have any sort of a reason to do so.
You certainly can bring suit against Google in some other country, but you can expect such a move to have a very minimal impact. I just watched one company close up shop in three countries where they were only involved in risky lawsuits, there weren't even judgements yet.
As an earlier posted stated, all of these potential problems could go away if Google only spidered and indexed websites with opt-in robot directives.
Nope, wouldn't work. It would keep out of the index all those wonderful old sites that are only there to provide information, and fill the index with all those garbage commercial sites that know the rules.
A much more likely result would be that the laws would expand to cover a requirement to use one of the standards to block robots from indexing your site. To do otherwise would destroy the internet.
The robots.txt entry which says "scrape here" requirement would be for such things as images, cache, glossary .. etc.
Snippets, which might fall on the right side of fair use, would not require a robots.txt entry.
The law may need to define more clearly what a snippet is and what is not.
BTW, my real reasoning behind all this is not so much suing Google, but really I am trying to figure out if these 'scraping directories' are sue-able or not. Since people understand and are more familar with search engines, I had hope that someone might know about some prior case history which could shed a light on this whole issue.
The robots.txt entry which says "scrape here" requirement would be for such things as images, cache, glossary .. etc.Snippets, which might fall on the right side of fair use, would not require a robots.txt entry.
How do you know that those other things might not fall on the side of fair use? It just so happens that there is a decision that was already referred to that pretty much puts google images in the clear. They are even very careful about how they frame the original site to keep from appearing to be associated with the site.
The law may need to define more clearly what a snippet is and what is not.
Not going to happen. both the courts and the legislature have gone out of their way to avoid defining a hard and fast definition of fair use. They want each case to be analyzed on its own merits.
BTW, my real reasoning behind all this is not so much suing Google, but really I am trying to figure out if these 'scraping directories' are sue-able or not. Since people understand and are more familar with search engines, I had hope that someone might know about some prior case history which could shed a light on this whole issue.
You should always ask the question that you want the answer to. Fair Use analysis would be completely different for a commercial scraped page than it would be fore a search engine result page where the user requested pages maching a search term.
For example, the arriba decision does not allow me to take thumbnails of someone elses pictures and use them however I want, but it does allow some uses of thumbnails. A ruling that applies to a SE does not necessarily apply to others.
As for the others, I think the courts may not clearly define a snippet but perhaps they will clarify the laws in such a way that a snippet will be more easily recognized.
Do I know what falls on the side of fair use? Eh, there's the rub. No one knows. I have my IMOs but maybe I am wrong to have an IMO?
Anyways, what falls on the side of fair use could be allowed and what doesn't needs to be permissioned in the robots.txt
I think breaking up a complex problem into simpler questions is not a crime.
No, but asking what color the sky is when you really want to know how cheese tastes is likely to result in ineffectual answers.
Do I know what falls on the side of fair use? Eh, there's the rub. No one knows. I have my IMOs but maybe I am wrong to have an IMO?
Actually in almost all cases, it is incredibly clear whether or not something is Fair Use or not to those that have studied it. But there is a large grey area that requires legal analysis. First concentrate on learning what definitely is and what definitely is not fair use. Then once you have that squared away, you can start delving into the may be fair use area.
It's great to have an opinion on this, and your opinion is fine for taking a personal position. But it is much better to have an *informed* opinion on the issue before arguing for that position.
Just go start reading at the stanford fair use site, and when they refer to a court case, do a search on that case name. When you read a decision, it will refer to other cases. Do a search on those case names, and read them.
Go down to your library and read the books by Lyman Ray Patterson. Search on his name and read any of his writings that are online.
And most important, don't base your opinions on press releases by the mpaa or riaa about copyright. Press releases are not legal opinions.
No, but asking what color the sky is when you really want to know how cheese tastes is likely to result in ineffectual answers.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Me, I more think about it as if asking what the color of oxygen or nitrogen is when really I want to know what the color of the sky is.
But hey, like I said, everyone is entitled to an opinion. BTW, I found the answers quite 'effectual'. So I was actually very happy with the results.
BigDave: I have given this some consideration. Don't you remember the thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]
BTW, I found the answers quite 'effectual'.
And you believe the sky is colorless.
The answers given you can not be automatically ported to the question you "meant" to ask. You would do well to follow BigDave's suggestion and do a goodly bit of reading on the topic at hand.
Opinions, particularly badly formed ones, will not serve you in a lawsuit.
It's obvious that you have given it consideration. You have also been to the fair use site, you've read it and tried to understand what is going on with it.
But reading the fair use site or asking questions here is really getting the readers digest version, if that.
You need to read the books about copyright, and even more important, you need to read the important decisions. And if you can get them, read the transcripts from the cases that got to the Supreme Court. Those transcripts can be quite revealing when the justices are asking their questions.
And don't be intimidated by reading the decisions. Most of them are written in fairly plain english. There will be citations, but you can just think of those as other things to look up.
