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Sure enough, a few companies did take legal action against AltaVista (Aardvark broke one such story) but ultimately it was deemed that, because any site could set up their Robots.txt file to avoid being indexed, no harm was being done. The onus was ultimately placed on the website to expressly exclude content it didn't want indexed.

Later, when Google began caching the text of webpages and started its own image search facility the problem arose again -- and was settled in the same way. Sites that don't want Google to cache their pages can easily opt-out of this process.

But now there's a much more difficult problem facing Google and AFP has chosen to sue the search engine company for what it claims is copyright infringement.

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AFP say that Google is using its images and news-copy without permission and that's a breach of copyright.

"So why can't AFP just opt-out of having its content spidered and added to the Google news index?" you might ask.

Well, unlike the previous scenarios that were solved by the opt-out option, AFP's content isn't always displayed on its own website.

AFP is a subscription newswire which sells its stories and images to other publishers and broadcasters who then, under license, republish/broadcast it through their own websites.

So, while AFP can easily stop Google from spidering its own website, it can do nothing about the fact that Google also spiders client websites where the same material is being published.

AFP could, of course, demand that its clients also opt-out from Google's spidering but that would probably be untenable since a goodly number of those client-sites benefit greatly from the traffic that Google delivers.

It would be very risky for AFP to make such demands of its customers, since many of them would probably opt to simply dump the AFP feed rather than lose the chance to be ranked in Google's search results.

I for one will be following this law suit with great interest since it's clear that someone's going to have to come up with a rather innovative solution if AFP prevails in their legal action.

Smorgasbord time?
It seems that a battle is brewing between hackers, who have worked out how to remove the DRM from iTunes downloads, and Apple who are not best pleased with the fact.

Once again this raises the whole lunacy of the battle that still rages between content publishers and consumers.

Every time the RIAA/MPAA come up with a newer/better way to stop their material from being copied without permission, the hacker community come up with a way to defeat it.

This means that instead of movies and albums getting cheaper due to greater sales volumes, they're likely to get more expensive -- due to the cost of developing or licensing every-more-complex DRM systems.

Maybe the studios ought to take a lesson from the way some hotels and restaurants make money.

When I go to Burger King they're smart enough to realise that charging me a single per-visit fee to access their drinks machine is good business sense. Even though I've paid just once, I can go back and fill up my cup as many times as I like -- without any additional payment.

Does this drive BK broke?

Of course not -- BK know that even though there's the potential for some abuse (a group of diners all sharing a single cup that's refilled multiple times), the benefits greatly outweigh any potential for loss.

Now maybe if the movie and recording industries adopted the same model then this whole stupid DRM/piracy battle could be virtually eliminated.

Why not just charge customers a flat monthly rate (at several levels if necessary) that allowed them to download all the unencumbered music they could drink in a month.

Sure, some people might download stuff for their friends on that subscription but the small amount of "cup sharing" that takes place at BK hasn't hurt any and I suspect the same would be true of download subscriptions.

The cost savings to be made by firing all those lawyers would be a massive boost to the company's profits all by itself -- to say nothing of the fact that people like me, who hardly ever buy CDs or DVDs any more, would be sorely tempted to sign up if the price was right.

Would you sign up?

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