[LINK] Google warns Aust copyright laws could cripple Internet

[Adam Todd]

At 02:09 PM 7/11/2006, Howard Lowndes wrote:
><hfl>
>This sounds somewhat similar to the Belgian Copiepresse case against Google.
></hfl>
>
>http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1782921.htm
>
>By Judy Skatssoon for ABC Science Online
>
>Plugging a word or phrase into a search engine may soon give you fewer 
>results if proposed new Australian copyright laws are adopted, according 
>to Internet giant Google.


Aren't these new laws part of the Free Trade Agreement "alignment" ??

>The laws could open the way for Australian copyright owners to take action 
>against search engines for caching and archiving material,

Um, I didn't know search engines were in the business or archiving!  Hmmm.

>Google says in a submission to a Senate committee considering the legislation.

Oh well, I can see Johnny bowing down to Google.  Considering Goggles stock 
values just a whittle bit over Telstra's :)

>This could potentially limit the scope of the search engine results, which 
>the Internet company describes as effectively "condemning the Australian 
>public to the pre-Internet era".

ROFL!  That's funny!

>"Google believes that the bill fails significantly to bring Australia's 
>Copyright Act fully into the digital age," the submission says.

Now what Google means is that the legislation fails to allow Google to do 
as they please!  Libraries have been doing this for decades!

>The Internet company wants general "safety valve" provisions, as well as 
>specific copyright exemptions to protect search engines from falling foul 
>of the law.

You mean Google wants a specific exemption so it can archive material it's 
probably not suppose to?

>"Given the vast size of the Internet it is impossible for a search engine 
>to contact personally each owner of a web page to determine whether the 
>owner desires its web page to be searched, indexed or cached," Google 
>submitted.

This is totally not true.  I get e-mails from Google asking me to allow 
googlebots into my robots restricted areas.

I'm guessing that Google "does the right thing" by robotos.txt whereas 
other engines do not and as such Google, in comparing it's data to some 
other less honest engines, found some of my pages weren't in their index, 
but were in others.

Admittedly Google needs to review it's manner of indexing.  This concept of 
"More links increases rating" is stupid.  Not all web sites are designed or 
desire to have lots of links pointing at them and from them.  And lets face 
it, we don't want home pages cluttered with 90,000 links to web pages with 
links back simply to get higher ratings.

Google has become less and less useful to me over the last two years.

>"If such advanced permission was required, the Internet would promptly 
>grind to a halt."

Rubbish.  Pandora (National Library of Australia) sends out a nice email 
asking for permission.

Is it REALLY that hard?

>Google is also concerned about the effect of the copyright laws on 
>digitisation projects like its book search, which allows users to download 
>books from the Internet.

Yes well, we already know that this is an issue with many publishers and 
authors too!