Comments on: Copyright Disclaimer Sufficient?

By: Jacques Distler

Jacques Distler — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

They indexed everything, not just MP3 files.

And, as the example in my post demonstrated, you can easily do a similar search on Google and return directories full of MP3 files, with nary a copyright warning in sight.

There’s a reason the DMCA had an exemption for search engines …

By: Robert Stewart

Robert Stewart — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Jacques, thanks for pointing out the fact that the students indexed all files. I read through the analysis you linked to while I was rewriting part of what I had written. I went back and added in “indexing audio and other files” in one place, but forgot to emphasize that elsewhere.

By: Marc

Marc — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Should I sue Google if I stumble upon a page of mine which was cached? It’s a copyright violation after all.

By: Robert Stewart

Robert Stewart — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Jacques’ comment suggests that it is not a copyright violation due to an exemption in the DMCA. The search engine company might also argue it is fair use.

There was a recent case where a photographer sued a search engine company over a set of cached thumbnail images of his photographs. The Ninth Circuit of Appeals ruled in favor of the search engine company.

I have no idea how the court would rule on a cache of the full web page. I haven’t heard of anyone sueing a company over that.