I disagree over legal remedies. Since Google's search is offered for free - with no consideration - then the Terms of Service can't be construed to be a contract. A contract requires offer, acceptance, and consideration to be legally enforced. We can agree on anything - "Hey let's meet for lunch, at noon, by the water fountain." And there's nothing I can do if you don't show up...unless I pay you, or offer something, then you would be in breach.
Copyright law protects ideas not the actual piece of paper or the publication. Google's idea can't be duplicated without permission. What exactly is Google's idea? Plus, then one could argue that Google is making money off of everyone else's copyrights without any royalty. Nobody goes to a search engine to just look at results. They want to see the information behind those results. The idea of a web directory or search engine isn't protected. Google's search engine software is copyright protected. But the results of a copyright protected tool don't neccesarily lead to another copyright. Example: I use Microsoft Word to publish a document. Microsoft's copyright does not extend to my document's ideas, but only to the underlying file format. I tend to agree with the phonebook analogy for this case.
Copyright law protects ideas not the actual piece of paper or the publication. Google's idea can't be duplicated without permission. What exactly is Google's idea? Plus, then one could argue that Google is making money off of everyone else's copyrights without any royalty. Nobody goes to a search engine to just look at results. They want to see the information behind those results. The idea of a web directory or search engine isn't protected.
Google's search engine software is copyright protected. But the results of a copyright protected tool don't neccesarily lead to another copyright. Example: I use Microsoft Word to publish a document. Microsoft's copyright does not extend to my document's ideas, but only to the underlying file format.
I tend to agree with the phonebook analogy. However,
I disagree over legal remedies. Since Google's search is offered for free - with no consideration - then the Terms of Service can't be construed to be a contract.
A contract requires offer, acceptance, and consideration to be legally enforced.
We can agree on anything - "Hey let's meet for lunch, at noon, by the water fountain." And there's nothing I can do if you don't show up...unless I pay you, or offer something, then you would be in breach.
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I disagree over legal remedies. Since Google's search is offered for free - with no consideration - then the Terms of Service can't be construed to be a contract. A contract requires offer, acceptance, and consideration to be legally enforced. We can agree on anything - "Hey let's meet for lunch, at noon, by the water fountain." And there's nothing I can do if you don't show up...unless I pay you, or offer something, then you would be in breach. Copyright law protects ideas not the actual piece of paper or the publication. Google's idea can't be duplicated without permission. What exactly is Google's idea? Plus, then one could argue that Google is making money off of everyone else's copyrights without any royalty. Nobody goes to a search engine to just look at results. They want to see the information behind those results. The idea of a web directory or search engine isn't protected. Google's search engine software is copyright protected. But the results of a copyright protected tool don't neccesarily lead to another copyright. Example: I use Microsoft Word to publish a document. Microsoft's copyright does not extend to my document's ideas, but only to the underlying file format. I tend to agree with the phonebook analogy for this case.
Copyright law protects ideas not the actual piece of paper or the publication. Google's idea can't be duplicated without permission. What exactly is Google's idea? Plus, then one could argue that Google is making money off of everyone else's copyrights without any royalty. Nobody goes to a search engine to just look at results. They want to see the information behind those results. The idea of a web directory or search engine isn't protected. Google's search engine software is copyright protected. But the results of a copyright protected tool don't neccesarily lead to another copyright. Example: I use Microsoft Word to publish a document. Microsoft's copyright does not extend to my document's ideas, but only to the underlying file format. I tend to agree with the phonebook analogy. However,
I disagree over legal remedies. Since Google's search is offered for free - with no consideration - then the Terms of Service can't be construed to be a contract. A contract requires offer, acceptance, and consideration to be legally enforced. We can agree on anything - "Hey let's meet for lunch, at noon, by the water fountain." And there's nothing I can do if you don't show up...unless I pay you, or offer something, then you would be in breach.