Re: robots & copyright law

Danny Sullivan (calafia@ix.netcom.com)
Mon, 27 Jan 1997 22:48:29 0000

> You'll notice that the phrase "not always appropriate" is deliberately
> woolly. Can anybody provide a more enlightened assessment? Is a document
> placed on the web OK to copy? My understanding is that most agents do
> so in their normal course of operation, so if it isn't OK (as I suspect),
> then does being a robot really make any difference?

Placing a document on the web does not surrender any copyright
whatsoever, any more than publishing a document in a book might.
Technically, by indexing all these pages, search engines are
violating copyright all over the place--especially those that do
full-text indexing.

Realistically, few are going to complain about this violation. Most
who put documents on the web want them to be found. Search engines
aid in this goal.

Eventually, someone is going to sue. Who knows what the result will
be. It could be that owners are required to declare their copyrights
using some sort of conventional means, such as employing a robots.txt
file. That puts the burden on the copyright holder rather than the
copyright infringer. But a court might decide this is a reasonable
way for those concerned about protecting their copyright to
accomodate these useful tools. It might also be that engines are
required to respect this sort of convention, less they fall liable to
being sued.

Of course, which court rules that and where is another thing.
Different countries could come up with different rules...don't expect
clear cut answer for a while.

>
> Thanks for any help,
> Tony Rose
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Dr TG Rose Senior Research Scientist Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd
> 20 Alan Turing Road, Surrey Research Park, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5YF
> email: tgr@cre.canon.co.uk tel: +44 1483 448807 fax: +44 1483 448845
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
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>
Danny Sullivan, Calafia Consulting
"A Webmaster's Guide to Search Engines"
http://calafia.com/webmasters/
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