[IP] SiliconValley.com - Good Morning Silicon Valley
Begin forwarded message:
Villians! How dare you induce people to read our content: It may be
that Google, more than even Grokster, has the most to lose from the
U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of MGM vs. Grokster (see "NBC
bolsters fall lineup with 'Peer-to-Peer: Criminal Intent' "). At
least that's the opinion of New York University's Siva Vaidhyanathan,
who in an editorial over at Salon wonders how long it will be before
the publishing industry figures out it can use the high court's
inducement standard as a cudgel with which to bludgeon the search
leader.
"Consider this," Vaidhyanathan writes. "Google, like Grokster, is
primarily a search engine. Its business model relies on
advertisements. And the more we use Google, the more money it makes.
Like Grokster, Google resolves communication queries. It generates a
link from an information provider to an information seeker. And
almost all of what it delivers is copyrighted. The fact that no major
copyright industry player has brought Google to court so far is
merely a function of the fact that most copyright holders want Google
to index and offer links to their materials. There is no explicit
contract. You have to opt out of the Google world. But there is one
major difference between Grokster and Google. Grokster does no
copying itself. It merely induces and enables. If anyone infringes,
it's Google: The company caches millions of Web pages without
permission (again, giving copyright holders the option of
protesting). And soon it will offer millions of copyrighted books in
electronic form without payment or permission. How would Google fare
in a post-Grokster world? The publishing industry no doubt wonders.
And it just might sue to find out."
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